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THli 

DIARY  OF  A  MM  OF  FIFTY 

AND 

A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS 


BY 

HENRY  JAMES,  JR. 

AUTHbR  OP 

'DAISY  MILLER"  "AN  INTERNATIONAL  EPISODE"  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 

HARPER    &    BROTHERS,   PUBLISHERS 
FRANKLIN    SQUARE 

1880 


Copyright,  1880,  by  HEJTRY  JAJIES,  Jr. 
.4#  ri^/fas  reserved. 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY 


673W46 


10        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN   OF  FIFTY. 

text  of  ray  own  young  romance ;  tlie  tiling 
lias  been  lying  before  me  to-day  as  a  clear, 
fresli  page.  There  have  been  moments  dur 
ing  the  last  ten  years  when  I  have  felt  so 
portentously  old,  so  fagged  and  finished,  that 
I  should  have  taken  as  a  very  bad  joke  any 
intimation  that  this  present  sense  of  juve 
nility  was  still  in  store  for  me.  It  won't  last, 
at  any  rate ;  so  I  had  better  make  the  best 
of  it.  But  I  confess  it  surprises  me.  I  have 
led  too  serious  a  life ;  but  that,  perhaps, 
after  all,  preserves  one's  youth.  At  all 
events,  I  have  travelled  too  far,  I  have 
•worked  too  hard,  I  have  lived  in  brutal  cli 
mates,  and  associated  with  tiresome  people. 
When  a  man  has  reached  his  fifty-second 
year  without  being,  materially,  the  worse 
for  wear — when  he  has  fair  health,  a  fair 
fortune,  a  tidy  conscience,  and  a  complete 
exemption  from  embarrassing  relatives — I 
suppose  he  is  bound,  in  delicacy,  to  write 
himself  happy.  But  I  confess  I  shirk  this 
obligation.  I  have  not  been  miserable;  I 
won't  go  so  far  as  to  say  that,  or  at  least  as 
to  write  it.  But  happiness — positive  hap 
piness — would  have  been  something  differ 
ent.  I  don't  know  that  it  would  have  been 
better,  by  all  measurements — that  it  would 
have  left  me  better  off  at  the  present  time. 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.        11 

Bat  it  certainly  would  have  made  this  dif 
ference — that  I  should  not  have  been  re 
duced,  in  pursuit  of  pleasant  images,  to  dis 
inter  a  buried  episode  of  more  than  a  quar 
ter  of  a  century  ago.  I  should  have  found 
entertainment  more — what  shall  I  call  it? 
— more  contemporaneous.  I  should  have 
had  a  wife  and  children,  and  I  should  not  be 
in  the  way  of  making,  as  the  French  say,  in 
fidelities  to  the  present.  Of  course  it's  a 
great  gain  to  have  had  an  escape,  not  to 
have  committed  an  act  of  thumping  folly; 
and  I  suppose  that,  whatever  serious  step 
one  might  have  taken  at  twenty-live,  after 
a  struggle  and  with  a  violent  effort,  and 
however  one's  conduct  might  appear  to  be 
justified  by  events,  there  would  always  re 
main  a  certain  element  of  regret;  a  certain 
sense  of  loss  lurking  in  the  sense  of  gain  ;  a 
tendency  to  wonder,  rather  wishfully,  what 
might  have  been.  What  might  have  been,  in 
this  case,  would,  without  doubt,  have  been 
very  sad,  and  what  has  been  has  been  very 
cheerful  and  comfortable ;  but  there  are, 
nevertheless,  two  or  three  questions  I  might 
ask  myself.  Why,  for  instance,  have  I  never 
married?  why  have  I  never  been  able  to 
care  for  any  woman  as  I  cared  for  that  one  ? 
Ah,  why  are  the  mountains  blue,  and  why 


12        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY. 

is  the  sunshine  warm  ?  Happiness  miti 
gated  by  impertinent  conjectures  —  that's 
about  my  ticket. 

6th. — I  knew  it  wouldn't  last ;  it's  already 
passing  away.  But  I  have  spent  a  delight 
ful  day ;  I  have  been  strolling  all  over  the 
place.  Everything  reminds  me  of  something 
else,  and  yet  of  itself  at  the  same  time ;  my 
imagination  makes  a  great  circuit  and  comes 
back  to  the  starting-point.  There  is  that 
well-remembered  odor  of  spring  in  the  air, 
and  the  flowers,  as  they  used  to  be,  are  gath 
ered  into  great  sheaves  and  stacks  all  along 
the  rugged  base  of  the  Strozzi  Palace.  I 
wandered  for  an  hour  in  the  Boboli  Gardens ; 
we  went  there  several  times  together.  I  re 
member  all  those  days  individually;  they 
seem  to  me  as  yesterday.  I  found  the  cor 
ner  where  she  always  chose  to  sit  —  the 
bench  of  sun-warmed  marble  in  front  of  the 
screen  of  ilex,  with  that  exuberant  statue  of 
Pomona  just  beside  it.  The  place  is  exactly 
the  same,  except  that  poor  Pomona  has  lost 
one  of  her  tapering  ringers.  I  sat  there  for 
half  an  hour,  and  it  was  strange  how  near 
to  mo  she  seemed.  The  place  was  perfectly 
empty  —  that  is,  it  was  filled  with  her.  I 
closed  my  eyes  and  listened ;  I  could  almost 
hear  the  rustle  of  her  dress  on  the  gravel. 


THE   DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.        13 

Why  do  we  make  such  an  ado  about  death  ? 
What  is  it,  after  all,  but  a  sort  of  refinement 
of  life  ?  She  died  ten  years  ago,  and  yet,  as 
I  sat  there  in  the  evening  stillness,  she  was 
a  palpable,  audible  presence.  I  went  after 
wards  into  the  gallery  of  the  palace,  and 
wrandered  for  an  hour  from  room  to  room. 
The  same  great  pictures  hung  in  the  same 
places,  and  the  same  dark  frescoes  arched 
above  them.  Twice,  of  old,  I  went  there 
with  her :  she  had  a  great  understanding  of 
art.  She  understood  all  sorts  of  things.  Be 
fore  the  Madonna  of  the  Chair  I  stood  a  long 
time.  The  face  is  not  a  particle  like  hers, 
and  yet  it  reminded  me  of  her.  But  every 
thing  does  that.  We  stood  and  looked  at  it 
together  once  for  half  an  hour;  I  remember 
perfectly  what  she  said. 

8th. — Yesterday  I  felt  blue  —  blue  and 
bored ;  and  when  I  got  up  this  morning  I 
had  half  a  mind  to  leave  Florence.  But  I 
went  out  into  the  street  beside  the  Arno, 
and  looked  up  and  down — looked  at  the  yel 
low  river  and  the  violet  hills,  and  then  de 
cided  to  remain — or,  rather,  I  decided  noth 
ing.  I  simply  stood  gazing  at  the  beauty  of 
Florence,  and  before  I  had  gazed  my  fill  I 
wras  in  good  humor  again,  and  it  was  too 
late  to  start  for  Rome.  I  strolled  along  the 


14        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY. 

quay,  where  something  presently  happened 
that  rewarded  me  for  staying.  I  stopped  in 
front  of  a  little  jeweller's  shop,  where  a 
great  many  ohjects  in  mosaic  were  exposed 
in  the  window  ;  I  stood  there  for  some  min 
utes — I  don't  know  why,  for  I  have  no  tasto 
for  mosaic.  In  a  moment  a  little  girl  came 
and  stood  beside  me  —  a  little  girl  with  a 
frowzy  Italian  head — carrying  a  basket.  I 
turned  away,  but,  as  I  turned,  my  eyes  hap 
pened  to  fall  on  her  basket.  It  was  covered 
with  a  napkin,  and  on  the  napkin  was 
pinned  a  piece  of  paper  inscribed  with  an 
address.  This  address  caught  my  glance — 
there  was  a  name  011  it  I  kne\v.  It  was  very 
legibly  written — evidently  by  a  scribe  who 
had  made  up  in  zeal  what  was  lacking  in 
skill.  "  Contessa  Salvi-Scarabelli,  Via  Ghi- 
belliua" — so  ran  the  superscription.  I  look 
ed  at  it  for  some  moments ;  it  caused  me  a 
sudden  emotion.  Presently  the  little  girl, 
becoming  aware  of  my  attention,  glanced 
up  at  me,  wondering,  with  a  pair  of  timid 
brown  eyes. 

"Are  you  carrying  your  basket  to  the 
Countess  Salvi  ?"  I  asked. 

The  child  stared  at  me.  "  To  the  Countess 
Scarabelli." 

"  Do  you  know  the  Countess  V 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.        15 

"  Know  her  ?"  murmured  the  child,  with 
an  air  of  small  dismay. 

"  I  mean  have  you  seen  her  ?" 

"Yes,  I  have  seen  her."  And  then,  in  a 
moment,  with  a  sudden  soft  smile,  "^  bella !" 
said  the  little  girl.  She  was  beautiful  her 
self  as  she  said  it. 

"  Precisely ;  and  is  she  fair  or  dark  ?" 

The  child  kept  gazing  at  me.  "JBionda — 
Irionda,"  she  answered,  looking  about  into 
the  golden  sunshine  for  a  comparison. 

"  And  is  she  young  ?" 

"  She  is  not  young — like  me.  But  she  is 
not  old — like — like — " 

"  Like  me,  eh  ?     And  is  she  married  ?" 

The  little  girl  began  to  look  wise.  "I 
have  never  seen  the  Signor  Conte." 

"And  she  lives  in  Via  Ghibellina?" 

"  Sicuro.     In  a  beautiful  palace." 

I  had  one  more  question  to  ask,  and  I 
pointed  it  with  certain  copper  coins.  "  Tell 
me  a  little — is  she  good?" 

The  child  inspected  a  moment  the  con 
tents  of  her  little  brown  fist.  "  It's  you  who 
are  good,"  she  answered. 

"  Ah,  but  the  Countess  ?"  I  repeated. 

My  informant  lowered  her  big  brown 
eyes,  with  an  air  of  conscientious  medita 
tion  that  was  inexpressibly  quaint.  "To 


16        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY. 

me  she  appears  so,"  slie  said,  at  last,  look 
ing  up. 

"  All,  then  she  must  be  so,"  I  said,  "  be 
cause,  for  your  age,  you  are  very  intelligent." 
And  having  delivered  myself  of  this  compli 
ment,  I  walked  away,  and  left  the  little  girl 
counting  her  soldi. 

I  walked  back  to  the  hotel,  wondering 
how  I  could  learn  something  about  the 
Contessa  Salvi-Scarabelli.  In  the  doorway 
I  found  the  innkeeper,  and  near  him  stood  a 
young  man  whom  I  immediately  perceived 
to  be  a  compatriot,  and  with  whom,  appar 
ently,  he  had  been  in  conversation. 

"I  wonder  whether  you  can  give  me  a 
piece  of  information,"  I  said  to  the  land 
lord.  "Do  you  know  anything  about  the 
Count  Salvi-Scarabelli  ?" 

The  landlord  looked  down  at  his  boots, 
then  slowly  raised  his  shoulders  with  a 
melancholy  smile.  "  I  have  many  regrets, 
dear  sir — " 

"  You  don't  know  the  name  ?" 

"I  know  the  name,  assuredly.  But  I 
don't  know  the  gentleman." 

I  saw  that  my  question  had  attracted  the 
attention  of  the  young  Englishman,  who 
looked  at  me  with  a  good  deal  of  earnest 
ness.  He  was  apparently  satisfied  with 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.        17 

what  lie  saw,  for  he  presently  decided  to 
speak. 

"  The  Count  Scarabelli  is  dead,"  he  said, 
very  gravely. 

I  looked  at  him  a  moment :  he  was  a 
pleasing  young  fellow.  "And  his  wid 
ow  lives,"  I  observed,  "in  Via  Ghibel- 
lina." 

"  I  dare  say  that  is  the  name  of  the  street." 
He  was  a  handsome  young  Englishman,  but 
he  was  also  an  awkward  one ;  he  wondered 
who  I  was  and  what  I  wanted,  and  he  did1 
me  the  honor  to  perceive  that,  as  regards 
these  points,  my  appearance  was  reassur 
ing.  But  he  hesitated,  very  properly,  to  talk 
with  a  perfect  stranger  about  a  lady  whom 
he  knew,  and  he  had  not  the  art  to  conceal 
his  hesitation.  I  instantly  felt  it  to  be  sin 
gular  that  though  he  regarded  me  as  a  per 
fect  stranger,  I  had  not  the  same  feeling 
about  him.  Whether  it  was  that  I  had  seen 
him  before,  or  simply  that  I  was  struck  with 
his  agreeable  young  face — at  any  rate,  I  felfc 
myself,  as  they  say  here,  in  sympathy  with 
him.  If  I  have  seen  him  before,  I  don't  re 
member  the  occasion,  and  neither,  apparent 
ly,  does  he ;  I  suppose  it's  only  a  part  of  the 
feeling  I  have  had  the  last  three  days  about 
everything.  It  was  this  feeling  that  made 
2 


18        THE  DIARY  OF   A  MAN  OF  FIFTY. 

me  suddenly  act  as  if  I  had  known  him  a 
long  time. 

"Do  you  know  the  Countess  Salvi?"  I 
asked. 

He  looked  at  me  a  little,  and  then,  with 
out  resenting  the  freedom  of  my  question, 
"The  Countess  Scarabelli,  you  mean,"  he 
said. 

"  Yes,"  I  answered ;  "  she's  the  daughter." 

"  The  daughter  is  a  little  girl." 

"  She  must  be  grown  up  now.  She  must 
be — let  me  see — close  upon  thirty." 

My  young  Englishman  began  to  smile. 
"  Of  whom  are  you  speaking  f " 

"  I  was  speaking  of  the  daughter,"  I  said, 
understanding  his  smile.  "  But  I  was  think 
ing  of  the  mother." 

u Of  tbe  mother?" 

"  Of  a  person  I  knew  twenty-seven  years 
ago — the  most  charming  woman  I  have  ever 
known.  She  was  the  Countess  Salvi ;  she 
lived  in  a  wonderful  old  house  in  Via  Ghi- 
belliua." 

"A  wonderful  old  house!"  my  young 
Englishman  repeated. 

"  Sbe  had  a  little  girl,"  I  went  on ;  "  and 
the  little  girl  was  very  fair,  like  her  mother ; 
and  the  mother  and  daughter  had  the  same 
name — Bianca."  I  stopped  and  looked  at 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN   OF   FIFTY.        19 

my  companion,  and  he  blushed  a  little. 
"  And  Bianca  Salvi,"  I  continued,  "  was  the 
most  charming  woman  in  the  world."  He 
blushed  a  little  more,  and  I  laid  my  hand  on 
his  shoulder.  "  Do  you  know  why  I  tell  you 
this?  Because  you  remind  me  of  what  I 
was  when  I  knew  her — when  I  loved  her," 
My  poor  youug  Englishman  gazed  at  me 
with  a  sort  of  embarrassed  and  fascinated 
stare,  and  still  I  went  on.  "  I  say  that's  the 
reason  I  told  you  this — but  you'll  think  it 
a  strange  reason.  You  remind  me  of  my 
younger  self.  You  needn't  resent  that;  I 
was  a  charming  young  fellow.  The  Count 
ess  Salvi  thought  so.  Her  daughter  thinks 
the  same  of  you." 

Instantly,  instinctively,  he  raised  his  hand 
to  my  arm.  "  Truly  ?" 

"Ah,  you  are  wonderfully  like  me!"  I 
said,  laughing.  "That  was  just  my  state 
of  mind.  I  wanted  tremendously  to  please 
her."  He  dropped  his  hand,  and  looked 
away,  smiling,  but  with  an  air  of  ingenuous 
confusion  which  quickened  my  interest  in 
him.  "You  don't  know  what  to  make  of 
me,"  I  pursued.  "You  don't  know  why  a 
stranger  should  suddenly  address  you  in  this 
way,  and  pretend  to  read  your  thoughts. 
Doubtless  you  think  me  a  little  cracked. 


20        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY. 

Perhaps  I  am  eccentric,  but  it's  not  so  bad 
as  that.  I  have  lived  about  the  world  a 
great  deal,  following  iny  profession,  which  is 
that  of  a  soldier.  I  have  been  in  India,  in 
Africa,  in  Canada,  and  I  have  lived  a  good 
deal  alone.  That  inclines  people,  I  think, 
to  sudden  bursts  of  confidence.  A  week  ago 
I  carne  into  Italy,  where  I  spent  six  months 
when  I  was  your  age.  I  came  straight  to 
Florence;  I  was  eager  to  see  it  again  on 
account  of  associations.  They  have  been 
crowding  upon  me  ever  so  thickly !  I  have 
taken  the  liberty  of  giving  you  a  hint  of 
them."  The  young  man  inclined  himself  a 
little  in  silence,  as  if  he  had  been  struck  with 
a  sudden  respect.  He  stood  and  looked  away 
for  a  moment  at  the  river  and  the  mountains. 
"  It's  very  beautiful,"  I  said. 

"  Oh,  it's  enchanting,"  he  murmured. 

"That's  the  way  I  used  to  talk.  But 
that's  nothing  to  you." 

He  glanced  at  me  again.  "On  the  con 
trary,  I  like  to  hear." 

"  Well,  then,  let  us  take  a  walk.  If  you, 
too,  are  staying  at  this  inn,  we  are  fellow- 
travellers.  We  will  walk  down  the  Arno 
to  the  Cascine.  There  are  several  things  I 
should  like  to  ask  of  you." 

My  young  Englishman  assented  with  an 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.        21 

air  of  almost  filial  confidence,  and  we  stroll 
ed  for  an  hour  beside  the  river  and  through 
the  shady  alleys  of  that  lovely  wilderness. 
We  had  a  great  deal  of  talk :  it's  not  only 
myself,  it's  my  whole  situation  over  again. 

"Are  you  very  fond  of  Italy?"  I  asked. 

He  hesitated  a  moment.  "  One  can't  ex 
press  that." 

"Just  so ;  I  couldn't  express  it.  I  used  to 
try ;  I  used  to  write  verses.  On  the  subject 
of  Italy  I  was  very  ridiculous.'7 

"  So  am  I  ridiculous,"  said  my  companion. 

"  No,  my  dear  boy,"  I  answered,  "  we  are 
not  ridiculous ;  we  are  two  very  reasonable, 
superior  people." 

"The  first  time  one  comes  —  as  I  have 
done — it's  a  revelation." 

"  Oh,  I  remember  well ;  one  never  forgets 
it.  It's  an  introduction  to  beauty. 

"And  it  must  be  a  great  pleasure,"  said 
my  young  friend,  "  to  come  back." 

"  Yes ;  fortunately  the  beauty  is  always 
here.  What  form  of  it,"  I  asked,  "  do  you 
prefer  ?" 

My  companion  looked  a  little  mystified ; 
and  at  last  he  said,  "  I  am  very  fond  of  the 
pictures." 

"  So  was  I.  And  among  the  pictures, 
which  do  you  like  best  ?" 


22        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY. 

"  Oh,  a  great  many." 

"  So  did  I ;  but  I  bad  certain  favorites." 

Again  the  young  man  hesitated  a  little, 
and  then  he  confessed  that  the  group  of 
painters  he  preferred,  on  the  whole,  to  all 
others  was  that  of  the  early  Florentines. 

I  was  so  struck  with  this  that  I  stopped 
short.  "  That  was  exactly  my  taste !"  And 
then  I  passed  my  hand  into  his  arm,  and  we 
went  our  way  again. 

We  sat  down  on  an  old  stone  bench  in  the 
Cascine,  and  a  solemn,  blank-eyed  Hermes, 
with  wrinkles  accentuated  by  the  dust  of 
ages,  stood  above  us  and  listened  to  our  talk. 

"  The  Countess  Salvi  died  ten  years  ago," 
I  said. 

My  companion  admitted  that  he  had  heard 
her  daughter  say  so. 

"After  I  knew  her  she  married  again,"  I 
added.  "  The  Count  Salvi  died  before  I  knew 
her — a  couple  of  years  after  their  marriage." 

"  Yes,  I  have  heard  that." 

"  And  what  else  have  you  heard  ?" 

My  companion  stared  at  me ;  he  had  evi 
dently  heard  nothing. 

"  She  was  a  very  interesting  woman  : 
there  are  a  great  many  things  to  be  said 
about  her.  Later,  perhaps,  I  will  tell  you. 
Has  the  daughter  the  same  charm  ?" 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.        23 

"  You  forget,"  said  my  young  man,  smil 
ing,  "that  I  have  never  seen  the  mother." 

"Very  true.  I  keep  confounding.  But 
the  daughter — how  long  have  you  known 
her?" 

"Only  since  I  have  been  here.  A  very 
short  time." 

"A  week?" 

For  a  moment  he  said  nothing.  "A 
month." 

"That's  just  the  answer  I  should  have 
made.  A  week,  a  month  —  it  was  all  the 
same  to  me." 

"  I  think  it  is  more  than  a  month,"  said 
the  young  man. 

"It's  prohahly  six.  How  did  you  make 
her  acquaintance  ?" 

"By  a  letter — an.  introduction  given  me 
"by  a  friend  in  England." 

"  The  analogy  is  complete,"  I  said.  "  But 
the  friend  who  gave  me  my  letter  to  Mad 
ame  de  Salvi  died  many  years  ago.  He,  too, 
admired  her  greatly.  I  don't  know  why  it 
never  came  into  my  mind  that  her  daughter 
might  be  living  in  Florence.  Somehow  I 
took  for  granted  it  was  all  over.  I  never 
thought  of  the  little  girl;  I  never  heard 
what  had  become  of  her.  I  walked  past 
the  palace  yesterday,  and  saw  that  it  was 


24        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFT5T. 

occupied,  but  I  took  for  granted  it  Lad 
changed  hands." 

"  The  Countess  Searabelli,"  said  my  friend, 
"  brought  it  to  her  husband  as  her  marriage 
portion." 

"I  hope  he  appreciated  it!  There  is  a 
fountain  in  the  court,  and  there  is  a  charm 
ing  old  garden  beyond  it.  The  Countess's 
sitting-room  looks  into  that  garden.  The 
staircase  is  of  white  marble,  and  there  is  a 
medallion  by  Luca  della  Robbia  set  into  the 
wall  at  the  place  where  it  makes  a  bend. 
Before  you  come  into  the  drawing-room  you 
stand  a  moment  in  a  great  vaulted  place, 
hung  round  with  faded  tapestry,  paved  with 
bare  tiles,  and  furnished  only  with  three 
chairs.  In  the  drawing-room,  above  the 
fireplace,  is  a  superb  Andrea  del  Sarto. 
The  furniture  is  covered  with  pale  sea- 
green." 

My  companion  listened  to  all  this.  "  The 
Andrea  del  Sarto  is  there ;  it's  magnificent. 
But  the  furniture  is  in  pale  red." 

"Ah!  they  have  changed  it,  then  —  in 
twenty-seven  years." 

"  And  there's  a  portrait  of  Madame  do 
Salvi,"  continued  my  friend. 

I  was  silent  a  moment.  "  I  should  like 
to  SQQ  that." 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.        25 

He,  too,  was  silent.  Then  lie  asked, "  Why 
don't  you  go  and  see  it  ?  If  you  knew  the 
mother  so  well,  why  don't  you  call  upon  the 
daughter  ?" 

"  From  what  you  tell  me,  I  am  afraid." 

"  What  have  I  told  you  to  make  you 
afraid  ?" 

I  looked  a  little  at  his  ingenuous  counte 
nance.  "  The  mother  was  a  very  dangerous 
woman." 

The  young  Englishman  began  to  blush 
again.  "  The  daughter  is  not,"  he  said. 

"  Are  you  very  sure  ?" 

He  didn't  say  he  was  sure,  but  he  present 
ly  inquired  in  what  way  the  Countess  Salvi 
had  been  dangerous. 

"  You  must  not  ask  me  that,"  I  answered ; 
"  for,  after  all,  I  desire  to  remember  only  what 
was  good  in  her."  And  as  we  walked  back 
I  begged  him  to  render  me  the  service  of 
mentioning  my  name  to  his  friend,  and  of 
saying  that  I  had  known  her  mother  well, 
and  that  I  asked  permission  to  come  and 
see  her. 

9th. — I  have  seen  that  poor  boy  half  a 
dozen  times  again,  and  a  most  amiable  young 
fellow  he  is.  He  continues  to  represent  to 
me,  in  the  most  extraordinary  manner,  my 
own  young  identity :  the  correspondence  is 


26        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAX  OF  FIFTY. 

perfect  at  all  points,  save  tliat  lie  is  a  better 
boy  than  I.  He  is  evidently  acutely  inter 
ested  in  his  Countess,  and  leads  quite  the 
same  life  with  her  that  I  led  with  Madame 
de  Salvi.  He  goes  to  see  her  every  even 
ing,  and  stays  half  the  night :  these  Floren 
tines  keep  the  most  extraordinary  hours.  I 
remember,  towards  3  A.M.,  Madame  de  Salvi 
used  to  turn  me  out.  "  Come,  come,"  she 
would  say ;  "  it's  time  to  go.  If  you  were 
to  stay  later,  people  might  talk."  I  don't 
know  at  what  time  he  comes  home,  but  I 
suppose  his  evening  seems  as  short  as  mine 
did.  To-day  he  brought  me  a  message  from 
his  Contessa — a  very  gracious  little  speech. 
She  remembered  often  to  have  heard  her 
mother  speak  of  me :  she  called  me  her  Eng 
lish  friend.  All  her  mother's  friends  were 
dear  to  her,  and  she  begged  I  would  do  her 
the  honor  to  come  and  see  her.  She  is  al 
ways  at  home  of  an  evening.  Poor  young 
Staumer  (he  is  of  the  Devonshire  Stanmers 
— a  great  property)  reported  this  speech  ver 
batim,  and,  of  course,  it  can't  in  the  least  sig 
nify  to  him  that  a  poor  grizzled,  battered 
soldier,  old  enough  to  be  his  father,  should 
come  to  call  upon  his  innamorata.  But  I  re 
member  how  it  used  to  matter  to  me  when 
other  men  came :  that's  a  point  of  difference. 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.        27 

However,  it's  only  because  I'm  so  old.  At 
twenty-five,  I  shouldn't  Lave  been  afraid  of 
myself  at  fifty-two.  Camerino  was  thirty- 
four  ;  and  then  the  others !  She  was  always 
at  home  in  the  evening,  and  they  all  used  to 
come.  They  were  old  Florentine  names. 
But  she  used  to  let  me  stay  after  them  all ; 
she  thought  an  old  English  name  as  good. 
What  a  transcendent  coquette !  . . .  But  basta 
cosi,  as  she  used  to  say.  I  meant  to  go  to 
night  to  Casa  Salvi,  but  I  couldn't  bring  my 
self  to  the  point.  I  don't  know  what  I'm 
afraid  of;  I  used  to  be  in  a  hurry  enough  to 
go  there  once.  I  suppose  I  am  afraid  of  the 
very  look  of  the  place — of  the  old  rooms,  the 
old  walls.  I  shall  go  to-morrow  night.  I 
am  afraid  of  the  very  echoes. 

Wth. — She  has  the  most  extraordinary  re 
semblance  to  her  mother.  When  I  went  in 
I  was  tremendously  startled ;  I  stood  staring 
at  her.  I  have  just  come  home ;  it  is  past 
midnight.  I  have  been  all  the  evening  at 
Casa  Salvi.  It  is  very  warm ;  my  window  is 
open  ;  I  can,  look  out  on  the  river,  gliding 
past  in  the  starlight.  So  of  old,  when  I  came 
home,  I  used  to  stand  and  look  out.  There 
are  the  same  cypresses  on  the  opposite  hills. 

Poor  young  Stanmer  was  there,  and  three 
or  four  other  admirers ;  they  all  got  up  when 


28        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY. 

I  came  in.  I  think  I  had  been  talked  about, 
and  there  was  some  curiosity.  But  why 
should  I  have  been  talked  about?  They 
were  all  youngish  men — none  of  them  of  my 
time.  She  is  a  wonderful  likeness  of  her 
mother;  I  couldn't  get  over  it.  Beautiful 
like  her  mother,  and  yet  with  the  same 
faults  in  her  face;  but  with  her  mother's 
perfect  head  aud  brow,  and  sympathetic,  al 
most  pitying,  eyes.  Her  face  has  j  ust  that  pe 
culiarity  of  her  mother's  which,  of  all  human 
countenances  that  I  have  ever  known,  was 
the  one  that  passed  most  quickly  and  com 
pletely  from  the  expression  of  gayety  to  that 
of  repose.  Repose  in  her  face  always  sug 
gested  sadness  ;  and  while  you  were  watch 
ing  it  with  a  kind  of  awe,  and  wondering  of 
what  tragic  secret  it  was  the  token,  it  kin 
dled,  on  the  instant,  into  a  radiant  Italian 
smile.  The  Countess  Scarabelli's  smiles  to 
night,  however,  were  almost  uninterrupted. 
She  greeted  me  —  divinely,  as  her  mother 
used  to  do ;  and  young  Stanmer  sat  in  the 
corner  of  the  sofa — as  I  used  to  do — and 
watched  her  while  she  talked.  She  is  thin 
and  very  fair,  and  was  dressed  in  light,  va 
porous  black ;  that  completes  the  resem 
blance.  The  house,  the  rooms,  are  almost 
absolutely  the  same ;  there  may  be  changes 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.         29 

of  detail,  but  they  don't  modify  the  general  ef 
fect.  There  are  the  same  precious  pictures  on 
the  walls  of  the  salon — the  same  great  dusky 
fresco  in  the  concave  ceiling.  The  daugh 
ter  is  not  rich,  I  suppose,  any  more  than  the 
mother.  The  furniture  is  worn  and  faded, 
aiid  I  was  admitted  by  a  solitary  servant, 
who  carried  a  twinkling  taper  before  me  up 
the  great  dark  marble  staircase. 

''I  have  often  heard  of  you,"  said  the 
Countess,  as  I  sat  down  near  her ;  "  my 
mother  often  spoke  of  you." 

"  Often  ?"  I  answered.  "  I  am  surprised 
at  that." 

"  Why  are  you  surprised  ?  Were  you  not 
good  friends  ?" 

"  Yes,  for  a  certain  time,  very  good  friends  j 
but  I  was  sure  she  had  forgotten  me." 

"  She  never  forgot,"  said  the  Countess, 
looking  at  me  intently  and  smiling.  "  She 
was  not  like  that." 

"She  was  not  like  most  other  women  in 
any  way,"  I  declared. 

u  Ah,  she  was  charming,"  cried  the  Count 
ess,  rattling  open  her  fau.  "I  have  always 
been  very  curious  to  see  you.  I  have  re 
ceived  an  impression  of  you." 

"  A  good  one,  I  hope." 

She  looked  at  me,  laughing,  and  not  an- 


30        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY. 

swering  tliis :  it  was  just  her  mother's  trick. 
"  'My  Englishman/  she  used  to  call  you,  lil 
mio  Inglese.-  " 

"  I  hope  she  spoke  of  me  kindly,"  I  in 
sisted. 

The  Countess,  still  laughing,  gave  a  little 
shrug,  balancing  her  hand  to  and  fro.  "  So, 
so ;  I  always  supposed  you  had  had  a  quar 
rel.  You  don't  mind  my  being  frank  like  this, 
eh?" 

"  I  delight  in  it ;  it  reminds  me  of  your 
mother." 

"  Every  one  tells  me  that.  But  I  am  not 
clever  like  her.  You  will  see  for  yourself." 

"  That  speech,"  I  said,  "  completes  the  re 
semblance.  She  was  always  pretending  she 
was  not  clever,  and  in  reality —  " 

"  In  reality  she  was  an  angel,  eh  ?  To  es 
cape  from  dangerous  comparisons,  I  will  ad 
mit,  then,  that  I  am  clever.  That  will  make 
a  difference.  But  let  us  talk  of  you.  You 
are  very — how  shall  I  say  it  ? — very  eccen 
tric." 

"  Is  that  what  your  mother  told  you  ?" 

"  To  tell  the  truth,  she  spoke  of  you  as  a 
great  original.  But  aren't  all  Englishmen, 
eccentric?  All  except  that  one !"  And  the 
Countess  pointed  to  poor  Staumer,  in  his  cor 
ner  of  the  sofa. 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.        31 

"Ob,  I  know  just  whafc  lie  is,"  I  said. 

"  He's  as  quiet  as  a  lamb  ;  he's  like  all  tbe 
world,"  cried  tbe  Countess. 

"  Like  all  tbe  world,  yes.  He's  in  love 
witb  you." 

Sbe  looked  at  nie  witb  sudden  gravity. 
"  I  don't  object  to  your  saying  tbat  for  all 
tbe  world,  but  I  do  for  bim." 

"  Well,"  I  went  on,  "  be's  peculiar  in  tbis : 
be's  ratber  afraid  of  you." 

Instantly  sbe  began  to  smile  ;  sbe  turned 
ber  face  towards  Staniner.  He  bad  seen  tbat 
we  were  talking  about  Mm ;  be  colored  and 
got  up,  tben  came  towards  us. 

"  I  like  men  wbo  are  afraid  of  nothing," 
said  our  bostess. 

"I  know  wbat  you  want,"  I  said  to  Stan- 
mer.  "  You  want  to  know  wbat  tbe  Signora 
Contessa  says  about  you." 

Stanmer  looked  ^straight  into  ber  face, 
very  gravely.  "  I  don't  care  a  straw  wbat 
sbe  says." 

"You  are  almost  a  match  for  the  Si 
gnora  Contessa,"  I  answered.  "Sbe  de 
clares  sbe  doesn't  care  a  pin's  bead  wbat 
you  think." 

"  I  recognize  tbe  Countess's  style,"  Stan 
mer  exclaimed,  turning  away. 

"One  would  think,"  said  tbe  Countess, 


32        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY. 

"that  you  were  trying  to  make  a  quarrel  be 
tween  us." 

I  watched  him  move  away  to  another  part 
of  the  great  salon  ;  he  stood  in  front  of  the 
Andrea  del  Sarto,  looking  up  at  it.  But  ho 
was  not  seeing  it ;  he  was  listening  to  what 
•we  might  say.  I  often  stood  there  in  just 
that  way.  "  He  can't  quarrel  with  you  any 
more  than  I  could  have  quarrelled  with  your 
mother." 

"Ah,  but  you  did.  Something  painful 
passed  between  you." 

"  Yes,  it  was  painful,  but  it  was  not  a  quar 
rel.  I  went  away  one  day,  and  never  saw 
her  again.  That  was  all." 

The  Countess  looked  at  me  gravely.  "What 
do  you  call  it  when  a  man  does  that  ?" 

"  It  depends  upon  the  case." 

"  Sometimes,"  said  the  Countess,  in  French, 
"  it's  a  Idcheti." 

"Yes,  and  sometimes  it's  an  act  of  wis 
dom." 

"  And  sometimes,"  rejoined  the  Countess, 
"  it's  a  mistake." 

I  shook  my  head.  "  For  me  it  was  no 
mistake." 

She  began  to  laugh  again.  "  Caro  sicjnore, 
you're  a  great  original.  What  had  my  poor 
mother  done  to  you  ?" 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.        33 

I  looked  at  our  young  Englishman,  who 
still  had  his  back  turned  to  us,  and  was  star 
ing  up  at  the  picture.  "  I  will  tell  you  some 
other  time,"  I  said. 

"  I  shall  certainly  remind  you ;  I  am  very 
curious  to  know."  Then  she  opened  and 
shut  her  fan  two  or  three  times,  still  looking 
at  me.  What  eyes  they  have !  "  Tell  me  a 
little,  if  I  may  ask  without  indiscretion.  Are 
you  married?" 

"  No,  Signora  Contessa." 

"  Isn't  that  at  least  a  mistake  ?" 

"  Do  I  look  unhappy  ?" 

She  dropped  her  head  a  little  to  one  side. 
"  For  an  Englishman — no  !" 

"  Ah,"  said  I,  laughing,  "  you  are  quite  as 
clever  as  your  mother." 

"And  they  tell  me  that  you  are  a  great 
soldier,"  she  continued.  "  You  have  lived  in 
India.  It  was  very  kind  of  you,  so  far  away, 
to  have  remembered  our  poor  dear  Italy." 

"  One  always  remembers  Italy ;  the  dis 
tance  makes  no  difference.  I  remembered  it 
well  the  day  I  heard  of  your  mother's  death." 

"  Ah,  that  was  a  sorrow,"  said  the  Count 
ess.  "  There's  not  a  day  that  I  don't  weep 
for  her.  But  die  vuote  t  She's  a  saint  in  Par 
adise." 

"  Sicuro,"  I  answered,  and  I  looked  some 
3 


34        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY. 

time  at  the  ground.  "But  tell  me  about 
yourself,  dear  lady,"  I  asked  at  last,  raising 
my  eyes.  "  You  have  also  had  the  sorrow 
of  losing  your  husband." 

"  I  am  a .  poor  widow,  as  you  see.  Che 
vuolef  My  husband  died  after  three  years 
of  marriage." 

I  waited  for  her  to  remark  that  the  late 
Count  Scarabelli  was  also  a  saint  in  Para 
dise,  but  I  waited  in  vain. 

"That  was  like  your  distinguished  fa 
ther,"  I  said. 

"  Yes,  he  too  died  young.  I  can't  be  said 
to  have  known  him  ;  I  was  but  of  the  age 
of  my  own  little  girl.  But  I  weep  for  him 
all  the  more." 

Again  I  was  silent  for  a  moment. 

"  It  was  in  India  too,"  I  said,  presently, 
"  that  I  heard  of  your  mother's  second  mar 
riage." 

The  Countess  raised  her  eyebrows.  "  In 
India,  then,  one  hears  of  everything.  Did 
that  news  please  you  f  > 

"  Well,  since  you  ask  me — no." 

"  I  understand  that,"  said  the  Countess, 
looking  at  her  open  fan.  "  I  shall  not  marry 
again  like  that." 

"That's  what  your  mother  said  to  me,"  I 
ventured  to  observe. 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.        35 

Slie  was  not  offended,  but  she  rose  from 
her  seat,  and  stood  looking  at  me  a  mo 
ment.  Then :  "  You  should  not  have  gono 
away !"  she  exclaimed. 

I  stayed  for  another  hour;  it  is  a  very  pleas 
ant  house.  Two  ,or  three  of  the  men  who 
were  sitting  there  seemed  very  civil  and  in 
telligent  ;  one  of  them  was  a  major  of  en 
gineers,  who  offered  me  a  profusion  of  infor 
mation  upon  the  new  organization  of  the 
Italian  army.  While  he  talked,  however,  I 
was  observing  our  hostess,  who  was  talking, 
with  the  others ;  very  little,  I  noticed,  with 
her  young  Inglese.  She  is  altogether  charm 
ing — full  of  frankness  and  freedom,  of  that 
inimitable  disinvoltura  which  in  an  English 
woman  would  be  vulgar,  and  which  in  her 
is  simply  the  perfection  of  apparent  spon 
taneity.  But  for  all  her  spontaneity,  she's 
as  subtle  as  a  needle-point,  and  knows  tre 
mendously  well  what  she  is  about.  If  she  is 
not  a  consummate  coquette —  What  had 
she  in  her  head  when  she  said  that  I  should 
not  have  gone  away  ?  Poor  little  Stanmer 
didn't  go  away.  I  left  him  there  at  mid 
night. 

12th. — I  found  him  to-day  sitting  in  the 
Church  of  Santa  Croce,  into  which  I  wan 
dered  to  escape  from  the  heat  of  the  sun. 


36        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OP  FIFTY. 

Iii  the  nave  it  was  cool  and  dim  ;  he  was 
staring  at  the  blaze  of  candles  on  the  great 
altar,  and  thinking,  I  am  sure,  of  his  incom 
parable  Countess.  I  sat  down  beside  him ; 
and  after  a  while,  as  if  to  avoid  the  appear 
ance  of  eagerness,  he  asked  me  how  I  had 
enjoyed  my  visit  to  Casa  Salvi,  and  what  I 
thought  of  the  padrona. 

"  I  think  half  a  dozen  things,"  I  said ;  "  but 
I  can  only  tell  you  one  now.  She's  an  en 
chantress.  You  shall  hear  the  rest  when  we 
have  left  the  church." 

"  An  enchantress  ?"  repeated  Stanmer, 
looking  at  me  askance. 

He  is  a  very  simple  youth ;  but  who  am  I 
to  blame  him  ? 

"A  charmer,"  I  said ;  "a  fascinatress." 

He  turned  away,  staring  at  the  altar  can 
dles. 

"  An  artist — an  actress,"  I  went  on,  rather 
brutally. 

He  gave  me  another  glance.  "I  think 
you  are  telling  me  all,"  he  said. 

"  No,  no ;  there  is  more."  And  we  sat  a 
long  time  in  silence. 

At  last  he  proposed  that  we  should  go 
out ;  and  we  passed  into  the  street,  where 
the  shadows  had  begun  to  stretch  them 
selves. 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.         37 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean  by  her 
being  an  actress,"  he  said,  as  we  turned 
homeward. 

"I  suppose  not.  Neither  should  I  have 
known  if  any  one  had  said  that  to  me." 

"  You  are  thinking  about  the  mother," 
said  Stanmer.  "  Why  are  you  always  bring 
ing  her  in  ?" 

"  My  dear  boy,  the  analogy  is  so  great ;  it 
forces  itself  upon  me." 

He  stopped,  and  stood  looking  at  me  with 
his  modest,  perplexed  young  face.  I  thought 
he  was  going  to  exclaim,  "  The  analogy  be 
hanged !"  but  he  said,  after  a  moment, "  Well, 
what  does  it  prove  ?" 

"I  can't  say  it  proves  anything;  but  it 
suggests  a  great  many  things." 

"  Be  so  good  as  to  mention  a  few,"  he  said, 
as  we  walked  on. 

"  You  are  not  sure  of  her  yourself,"  I  began. 

"Never  mind  that  —  go  on  with  your 
analogy." 

"  That's  a  part  of  it.  You  are  very  much 
in  love  with  her." 

"  That's  a  part  of  it,  too,  I  suppose  ?" 

"  Yes,  as  I  have  told  you  before.  You  are 
in  love  with  her,  and  yet  you  can't  make  her 
out;  that's  just  where  I  was  with  regard  to 
Madame  de  Salvi." 


33        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY. 

"And  she,  too,  was  an  enchantress,  an 
actress,  an  artist,  and  all  the  rest  of  it  ?'* 

"  She  was  the  most  perfect  coquette  I  ever 
knew,  and  the  most  dangerous,  because  the 
most  finished." 

II  What  you  mean,  then,  is  that  her  daugh 
ter  is  a  finished  coquette  ?" 

II 1  rather  think  so." 

Stanmer  walked  along  for  some  moments 
in  silence. 

"  Seeing  that  you  suppose  me  to  be  a — a 
great  admirer  of  the  Countess,"  he  said  at 
last,  "I  am  rather  surprised  at  the  freedom 
with  which  you  speak  of  her." 

I  confessed  that  I  was  surprised  at  it  my 
self.  "  But  it's  on  account  of  the  interest  I 
take  in  you." 

"  I  am  immensely  obliged  to  you,"  said 
the  poor  boy. 

"  Ah,  of  course  you  don't  like  it.  That  is, 
you  like  my  interest — I  don't  see  how  you 
can  help  liking  that — but  you  don't  like  my 
freedom.  That's  natural  enough ;  but,  my 
dear  young  friend,  I  want  only  to  help  you. 
If  a  man  had  said  to  me — so  many  years  ago 
— what  I  am  saying  to  you,  I  should  certain 
ly,  also,  at  first  have  thought  him  a  great 
brute.  But  after  a  little  I  should  have  been 
grateful  —  I  should  have  felt  that  he  was 
helping  me." 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.         39 

"  You  seem  to  have  been  very  well  able  to 
help  yourself,"  said  Stanmer.  "  You  tell  me 
you  made  your  escape." 

"  Yes,  but  it  was  at  the  cost  of  infinite 
perplexity — of  what  I  may  call  keen  suffer 
ing.  I  should  like  to  save  you  all  that." 

"  I  can  only  repeat — it  is  really  very  kind 
of  you." 

"  Don't  repeat  it  too  often,  or  I  shall  begin 
to  think  you  don't  mean  it." 

"Well,"  said  Stanmer,  "I  think  this,  at 
any  rate — that  you  take  an  extraordinary 
responsibility  in  trying  to  pnt  a  man  out 
of  conceit  of  a  woman  who,  as  he  believes, 
may  make  him  very  happy." 

I  grasped  his  arm,  and  we  stopped,  going 
on  with  our  talk  like  a  couple  of  Floren 
tines. 

"  Do  you  wish  to  marry  her?" 

He  looked  away,  without  meeting  my 
eyes.  "It's  a  great  responsibility,"  he  re 
peated. 

"Before  Heaven,"  I  said,  "I  would  have 
married  the  mother!  You  are  exactly  in 
my  situation." 

"  Don't  you  think  you  rather  overdo  the 
analogy  f  asked  poor  Stanmer. 

"A  little  more,  a  little  less  —  it  doesn't 
matter.  I  believe  you  are  in  my  shoes.  But, 


40        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY. 

of  course,  if  you  prefer  it,  I  will  beg  a  thou 
sand  pardons,  aud  leave  them  to  carry  you 
where  they  will.* 

He  had  been  looking  away,  but  now  he 
slowly  turned  his  face  and  met  my  eyes. 
"You  have  gone  too  far  to  retreat.  What 
is  it  you  know  about  her  ?" 

"About  this  one  —  nothing.  But  about 
the  other—" 

"  I  care  nothing  about  the  other." 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  I  said,  "  they  are  moth 
er  and  daughter — they  are  as  like  as  two  of 
Andrea's  Madonnas." 

"  If  they  resemble  each  other,  then  you 
were  simply  mistaken  in  the  mother." 

I  took  his  arm,  and  we  walked  on  again ; 
there  seemed  no  adequate  reply  to  such  a 
charge.  "  Your  state  of  mind  brings  back 
my  own  so  completely,"  I  said,  presently. 
"You  admire  her,  you  adore  her,  and  yet, 
secretly,  you  mistrust  her.  You  are  en 
chanted  with  her  personal  charm,  her  grace, 
her  wit,  her  everything ;  and  yet  in  your 
private  heart  you  are  afraid  of  her." 

"Afraid  of  her?" 

"Your  mistrust  keeps  rising  to  the  sur 
face  ;  you  can't  rid  yourself  of  the  suspicion 
that  at  the  bottom  of  all  things  she  is  hard 
and  cruel,  and  you  would  be  immensely  re- 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.        41 

lieved  if  some  one  should  persuade  you  that 
your  suspicion  is  right." 

Stanmer  made  no  direct  reply  to  this ;  but 
before  we  reached  the  hotel  he  said,  "  What 
did  you  ever  know  about  the  mother  ?" 

"  It's  a  terrible  story,"  I  answered. 

He  looked  at  me  askance.  "  What  did 
she  do  ?" 

"  Come  to  my  rooms  this  evening,  and  I 
will  tell  you." 

He  declared  he  would,  but  he  never  came. 
Exactly  the  way  I  should  have  acted ! 

14M. — I  went  again  last  evening  to  Casa 
Salvi,  where  I  found  the  same  little  circle, 
with  the  addition  of  a  couple  of  ladies. 
Staumer  was  there,  trying  hard  to  talk  to 
one  of  them,  but  making,  I  am  sure,  a  very 
poor  business  of  it.  The  Countess  —  well, 
the  Countess  was  admirable.  She  greet 
ed  me  like  a  friend  of  ten  years,  towards 
whom  familiarity  should  not  have  engen 
dered  a  want  of  ceremony;  she  made  me 
sit  near  her,  and  she  asked  me  a  dozen 
questions  about  my  health  and  my  occupa 
tions. 

"  I  live  in  the  past,"  I  said.  "  I  go  into 
the  galleries,  into  the  old  palaces  and  the 
churches.  To-day  I  spent  an  hour  in  Michael 
Angelo's  chapel  at  San  Lorenzo." 


42        THE   DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY. 

aAli  yes,  that's  the  past,"  said  the  Count 
ess.  "  Those  thiDgs  are  very  old." 

"  Twenty-seven  years  old,"  I  answered. 

"Twenty-seven?     Altro !" 

" I  mean  rny  own  past,"  I  said.  "I  went 
to  a  great  many  of  those  places  with  your 
mother." 

"  Ah,  the  pictures  are  beautiful,"  mur 
mured  the  Countess,  glancing  at  Stanmer. 

"  Have  you  lately  looked  at  any  of  them  ?" 
I  asked.  "Have  you  gone  to  the  galleries 
with  him  ?" 

She  hesitated  a  moment,  smiling.  "It 
seems  to  me  that  your  question  is  a  little 
impertinent.  But  I  think  you  are  like 
that." 

"  A  little  impertinent  ?  Never.  As  I  say, 
your  mother  did  me  the  honor  more  than 
once  to  accompany  me  to  the  Uffizzi." 

"  My  mother  must  have  been  very  kind  to 
you." 

"  So  it  seemed  to  me  at  the  time." 

"At  the  time,  only?" 

"Well,  if  you  prefer,  so  it  seems  to  rno 
now." 

"  Ah,"  said  the  Countess,  "  she  made  sacri 
fices." 

"  To  what,  cam  signora  f  She  was  per 
fectly  free.  Your  lamented  father  was  dead, 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.        43 

and  she  Lad  not  yet  contracted  her  second 
marriage.'7 

"  If  she  was  intending  to  marry  again,  it 
was  all  the  more  reason  she  should  have 
been  careful." 

I  looked  at  her  a  moment ;  she  met  my 
eyes  gravely,  over  the  top  of  her  fan.  "  Are 
you  very  careful  ?"  I  said. 

She  dropped  her  fan  with  a  certain  vio 
lence.  "  Ah  yes,  you  are  impertinent." 

"Ah  no," I  said.  "Kernernber  that  I  am 
old  enough  to  be  your  father,  that  I  knew 
you  when  you  were  three  years  old.  I  may 
surely  ask  such  questions.  But  you  are 
right :  one  must  do  your  mother  justice. 
She  was  certainly  thinking  of  her  second 
marriage." 

"You  have  not  forgiven  her  that,"  said 
the  Countess,  very  gravely. 

"  Have  you  ?"  I  asked,  more  lightly. 

"  I  don't  judge  my  mother.  That  is  a 
mortal  sin.  My  stepfather  was  very  kind 
to  me." 

"  I  remember  him,"  I  said ;  "  I  saw  him  a 
great  many  times — your  mother  already  re 
ceived  him." 

My  hostess  sat  with  lowered  eyes,  saying 
nothing ;  but  she  presently  looked  up.  "  She 
was  very  unhappy  with  my  father." 


44        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY. 

"That  I  can  easily  believe.      And  your 
stepfather — is  he  still  living  ?" 
"  He  died — before  my  mother." 
"  Did  he  fight  any  more  duels  ?" 
"  He  was  killed  in  a  duel,"  said  the  Count 
ess,  discreetly. 

It  seems  almost  monstrous,  especially  as 
I  can  give  no  reason  for  it,  but  this  an 
nouncement,  instead  of  shocking  me,  caused 
me  to  feel  a  strange  exhilaration.  Most  as 
suredly,  after  all  these  years,  I  bear  the  poor 
man  no  resentment.  Of  course  I  controlled 
my  manner,  and  simply  remarked  to  the 
Countess  that  as  his  fault  had  been,  so  was 
his  punishment.  I  think,  however,  that  the 
feeling  of  which  I  speak  was  at  the  bottom 
of  my  saying  to  her  that  I  hoped  that,  un 
like  her  mother's,  her  own  brief  married  life 
had  been  happy. 

"  If  it  was  not,"  she  said,  "I  have  forgot 
ten  it  now."  I  wonder  if  the  late  Count 
Scarabelli  was  also  killed  in  a  duel,  and  if 
his  adversary —  Is  it  on  the  books  that  his 
adversary  as  well  shall  perish  by  the  pistol  ? 
Which  of  those  gentlemen  is  he,  I  wonder  ? 
Is  it  reserved  for  poor  little  Stanmer  to  put 
a  bullet  into  him?  No;  poor  little  Stan 
mer,  I  trust,  will  do  as  I  did.  And  yet,  un 
fortunately  for  him,  that  woman  is  consum- 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.         45 

mately  plausible.  She  was  wonderfully  nice 
last  evening;  she  was  really  irresistible. 
Such  frankness  and  freedom,  and  yet  some 
thing  so  soft  and  womanly;  such  graceful 
gayety,  so  much  of  the  brightness,  without 
any  of  the  stiffuess,  of  good-breeding,  and 
over  it  all  something  so  picturesquely  sim 
ple  and  Southern !  She  is  a  perfect  Italian. 
But  she  comes  honestly  by  it.  After  the 
talk  I  have  just  jotted  down,  she  changed 
her  place,  and  the  conversation  for  half  an 
hour  was  general.  Stanmer,  indeed,  said 
very  little ;  partly,  I  suppose,  because  he  is 
shy  of  talking  a  foreign  tongue.  Was  I  like 
that  ?  was  I  so  constantly  silent  ?  I  suspect 
I  was  when  I  was  perplexed,  and  Heaven 
knows  that  very  often  my  perplexity  was 
extreme.  Before  I  went  away  I  had  a  few 
more  words  tvte-a-tete  with  the  Countess. 

"  I  hope  you  are  not  leaving  Florence  yet," 
she  said ;  "  you  will  stay  a  while  longer  ?" 

I  answered  that  I  had  come  only  for  a  week, 
and  that  my  week  was  over.  "I  stay  on 
from  day  to  day,  I  am  so  much  inter 
ested." 

"  Ah,  it's  the  beautiful  moment.  I'm  glad 
our  city  pleases  you." 

"  Florence  pleases  me — and  I  take  a  pa 
ternal  interest  in  our  young  friend,"  I  added, 


46         THE  DIAHY  OF  A  MAX  OF  FIFTY. 

glancing  at  Stanmer.  "I  have  become  very 
fond  of  him." 

"  Bel  tipo  Inglese,"  said  my  hostess.  "  And 
he  is  very  intelligent ;  he  has  a  beautiful 
mind." 

She  stood  there  resting  her  smile  and  her 
clear,  expressive  eyes  upon  me. 

"  I  don't  like  to  praise  him  too  much,"  I 
rejoined,  "  lest  I  should  appear  to  praise  my 
self ;  he  reminds  me  so  much  of  what  I  was 
at  his  age.  If  your  beautiful  mother  were 
to  come  to  life  for  an  hour,  she  would  see 
the  resemblance." 

She  gave  me  a  little  amused  stare. 

"And  yet  you  don't  look  at  all* like  him." 

"Ah,  you  didn't  know  me  when  I  was 
twenty-five.  I  was  very  handsome.  And, 
moreover,  it  isn't  that,  it's  the  mental  re 
semblance.  I  was  ingenuous,  candid,  trust 
ing,  like  him." 

"  Trusting  ?  I  remember  my  mother  once 
telling  me  that  you  were  the  most  suspi 
cious  and  jealous  of  men." 

"  I  fell  into  a  suspicious  mood,  but  I  was, 
fundamentally,  not  in  the  least  addicted  to 
thinking  evil.  I  couldn't  easity  imagine 
any  harm  of  any  one." 

"And  so  you  mean  that  Mr.  Stanrner  is  in 
a  suspicious  mood  f ; 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.        47 

"Well,  I  mean  that  Ms  situation  is  the 
same  as  mine." 

The  Countess  gave  me  one  of  her  serious 
looks.  "  Come/7  she  said,  "  what  \vas  it — • 
this  famous  situation  of  yours?  I  have 
heard  you  mention  it  before." 

"  Your  mother  might  have  told  you,  since 
she  occasionally  did  me  the  honor  to  speak 
of  me." 

"All  my  mother  ever  told  me  was  that 
you  were  a  sad  puzzle  to  her." 

At  this,  of  course,  I  laughed  out;  I  laugh 
still  as  I  write  it. 

"Well,  then,  that  was  my  situation — I 
was  a  sad  puzzle  to  a  very  clever  woman." 

"And  you  mean,  therefore,  that  I  ani  a 
puzzle  to  poor  Mr.  Stanmer?" 

"  He  is  racking  his  brains  to  make  you 
out.  Remember  it  was  you  who  said  he 
was  intelligent." 

She  looked  round  at  him,  and,  as  fortune 
would  have  it,  his  appearance  at  that  mo 
ment  quite  confirmed  my  assertion.  He  was 
lounging  back  in  his  chair  with,  an  air  of  in 
dolence  rather  too  marked  for  a  drawing- 
room,  and  staring  at  the  ceiling  with  the  ex 
pression  of  a  man  who  has  just  been  asked  a 
conundrum.  Madame  Scarabelli  seemed 
struck  with  his  attitude. 


48        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN   OF  FIFTY. 

"Don't  you  see,"  I  said,  "lie  can't  read 
the  riddle?" 

"You  yourself,"  she  answered,  "said  he 
was  incapable  of  thinking  evil.  I  should  be 
sorry  to  have  him  think  any  evil  of  we." 

And  she  looked  straight  at  me — serious 
ly,  appealingly — with  her  beautiful  candid 
brow. 

I  inclined  myself,  smiling,  in  a  manner 
which  might  have  meant  "How  could  that 
be  possible  ?" 

"I  have  a  great  esteem  for  him,"  she 
went  on ;  "I  want  him  to  think  well  of  me. 
If  I  am  a  puzzle  to  him,  do  me  a  little  ser 
vice.  Explain  me  to  him." 

"Explain  you,  dear  lady?" 

"  You  are  older  and  wiser  than  he.  Make 
him  understand  me." 

She  looked  deep  into  my  eyes  for  a  mo 
ment,  and  then  she  turned  away. 

26th. — I  have  written  nothing  for  a  good 
many  days,  but  meanwhile  I  have  been 
half  a  dozen  times  to  Casa  Salvi.  I  have 
seen  a  good  deal  also  of  my  young  friend — 
had  a  good  many  walks  and  talks  with  him. 
I  have  proposed  to  him  to  come  with  me  to 
Venice  for  a  fortnight,  but  he  won't  listen 
to  the  idea  of  leaving  Florence.  He  is  very 
happy,  in  spite  of  his  doubts,  and  I  confess 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.        49 

that  in  the  perception  of  Ms  happiness  I 
have  lived  over  again  my  own.  This  is  so 
much  the  case  that  when,  the  other  day,  he 
at  last  made  up  his  mind  to  ask  me  to  tell 
him  the  wrong  that  Madame  de  Salvi  had 
done  me,  I  rather  checked  his  curiosity.  I 
told  him  that  if  he  was  bent  upon  knowing, 
I  would  satisfy  him,  but  that  it  seemed  a 
pity  just  now  to  indulge  in  painful  imagery. 

"  But  I  thought  you  wanted  so  much  to 
put  me  out  of  conceit  of  our  friend." 

"  I  admit  I  am  inconsistent,  but  there  are 
various  reasons  for  it.  In  the  first  place — 
it's  obvious — I  am  open  to  the  charge  of 
playing  a  double  game.  I  profess  an  ad 
miration  for  the  Countess  Scarabelli,  for  I 
accept  her  hospitality,  and  at  the  same  time 
I  attempt  to  poison  your  mind.  Isn't  that 
the  proper  expression?  I  can't  exactly 
make  up  my  mind  to  that,  though  my  ad 
miration  for  the  Countess  and  my  desire  to 
prevent  you  from  taking  a  foolish  step  are 
equally  sincere.  And  then,  in  the  second 
place,  you  seem  to  me,  on  the  whole,  so 
happy !  One  hesitates  to  destroy  an  illusion, 
no  matter  how  pernicious,  that  is  so  delight 
ful  while  it  lasts.  Those  are  the  rare  mo 
ments  of  life.  To  be  young  and  ardent  in 
the  midst  of  an  Italian  spring,  and  to  be- 
4 


50        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAX  OF  FIFTY. 

lieve  in  the  moral  perfection  of  a  beauti 
ful  woman — what  an  admirable  situation! 
Float  with  the  current;  I'll  stand  on  the 
brink  and  watch  you." 

"Your  real  reason  is  that  yon  feel  yon 
have  no  case  against  the  poor  lady/'  said 
Stanmer.  "You  admire  her  as  much  as  I 
do." 

"I  just  admitted  that  I  admire  her.  I 
never  said  she  was  a  vulgar  flirt ;  her  mother 
was  an  absolutely  scientific  one.  Heaven 
knows  I  admired  that!  It's  a  nice  point, 
however,  how  much  one  is  bound  in  honor 
not  to  warn  a  young  friend  agaiust  a  dan 
gerous  woman  because  one  also  has  rela 
tions  of  civility  with  the  lady." 

"In  such  a  case,"  said  Staumer,  "I  would 
break  oif  my  relations." 

I  looked  at  him,  and  I  think  I  laughed. 
"Are  you  jealous  of  me,  by  chance?" 

He  shook  his  head  emphatically.  "  Not 
in  the  least ;  I  like  to  see  you  there,  because 
your  conduct  contradicts  your  words." 

"  I  have  always  said  that  the  Countess  is 
fascinating." 

"Otherwise,"  said  Stanmer,  "in  the  case 
you  speak  of,  I  would  give  the  lady  notice." 

"  Give  her  notice  ?" 

"  Mention  to  her  that  you  regard  her  with 


THE  DIARY  OP  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.        51 

suspicion,  and  that  you  propose  to  do  your 
best  to  rescue  a  simple-minded  youth  from 
her  wiles.  That  would  be  more  loyal."  And 
he  began  to  laugh  again. 

It  is  not  the  first  time  he  has  laughed  at 
me ;  but  I  have  never  minded  it,  because  I 
have  always  understood  it. 

"Is  that  what  you  recommend  me  to  say 
to  the  Countess  ?"  I  asked. 

"Recommend  you!"  he  exclaimed,  laugh 
ing  again.  "  I  recommend  nothing.  I  may 
be  the  victim  to  be  rescued,  but  I  am  at 
least  not  a  partner  to  the  conspiracy.  Be 
sides,'7  he  added,  in  a  moment,  the  "  Count 
ess  knows  your  state  of  mind." 

"  Has  she  told  yon  so  ?" 

Stanmer  hesitated.  "  She  has  begged  me 
to  listen  to  everything  you  may  say  against 
her.  She  prefers  that ;  she  has  a  good  con 
science." 

"Ah,"  said  I,  "she's  an  accomplished 
woman !" 

And  it  is,  indeed,  very  clever  of  her  to 
take  that  tone.  Stanmer  afterwards  assured 
me  explicitly  that  he  has  never  given  her 
a  hint  of  the  liberties  I  have  taken  in  con 
versation  with — what  shall  I  call  it  ? — with 
her  moral  nature :  she  has  guessed  them  for 
herself.  She  must  hate  me  intensely,  and 


52        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY. 

yet  her  manner  has  always  been  so  charm 
ing  to  me!  She  is  truly  an  accomplished 
•woman! 

May  4. — I  have  stayed  away  from  Casa 
Salvi  for  a  week,  hut  I  have  lingered  on  in 
Florence,  under  a  mixture  of  impulses.  I 
have  had  it  on  my  conscience  not  to  go  near 
the  Countess  again;  and  yet,  from  the  mo 
ment  she  is  aware  of  the  way  I  feel  about 
her,  it  is  open  war.  There  need  be  no  scru 
ples  on  either  side.  She  is  as  free  to  use 
every  possible  art  to  entangle  poor  Stanmer 
more  closely  as  I  am  to  clip  her  fine-spun 
meshes.  Under  the  circumstances,  however, 
we  naturally  shouldn't  meet  very  cordially. 
But  as  regards  her  meshes,  why,  after  all, 
should  I  clip  them  ?  It  would  really  be  very 
interesting  to  see  Staumer  swallowed  up. 
I  should  like  to  see  how  he  would  agree 
with  her  after  she  had  devoured  him.  (To 
what  vulgar  imagery,  by-the-way,  does  cu 
riosity  reduce  a  man!)  Let  him  finish  the 
story  in  his  own  way,  as  I  finished  it  in 
mine.  It  is  the  same  story;  but  why,  a 
quarter  of  a  century  later,  should  it  have 
the  same  denouement  ?  Let  him  make  his 
own  denouement. 

5/A. — Hang  it,  however,  I  don't  want  the 
poor  boy  to  be  miserable. 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OP  FIFTY.        53 

Qtli. — All!  "but  did  my  denouement  then 
prove  such  a  happy  one  ? 

7th. — He  came  to  my  room  late  last  night ; 
he  was  much  excited. 

"  What  was  it  she  did  to  you  ?"  he  asked. 

I  answered  him  first  with  another  ques 
tion.  "Have  you  quarrelled  with  the 
Countess  ?" 

But  he  only  repeated  his  own.  "What 
was  it  she  did  to  you  1" 

"Sit  down,  and  I'll  tell  you."  And  he 
sat  there  beside  the  candle,  staring  at  me. 
"There  was  a  man  always  there — Count 
Camerino." 

"The  man  she  married?" 

"  The  man  she  married.  I  was  very  much 
in  love  with  her,  and  yet  I  didn't  trust  her, 
I  was  sure  that  she  lied;  I  believed  she 
could  be  cruel.  Nevertheless,  at  moments, 
she  had  a  charm  which  made  it  pure  pedan 
try  to  be  conscious  of  her  faults ;  and  while 
these  moments  lasted  I  would  have  done 
anything  for  her.  Unfortunately  they  didn't 
last  long.  But  you  know  what  I  mean :  am 
I  not  describing  the  Scarabelli  ?" 

"The  Countess  Scarabelli  never  lied!" 
cried  Stanmer. 

"That's  just  what  I  would  have  said  to 
any  one  who  should  have  made  the  iusinu- 


54        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN   OF   FIFTY. 

ation!  But  I  suppose  you  are  not  asking 
me  the  question  you  put  to  me  just  now  from 
dispassionate  curiosity?" 

"  A  man  may  want  to  know/'  said  the  in 
nocent  fellow. 

I  couldn't  help  laughing  out.  "This,  at 
any  rate,  is  my  story :  Camerino  was  al 
ways  there ;  he  was  a  sort  of  fixture  in  the 
house.  If  I  had  moments  of  dislike  for  the 
divine  Biauca,  I  had  no  moments  of  liking 
for  him.  And  yet  he  was  a  very  agreeable 
fellow,  very  civil,  very  intelligent,  not  in 
the  least  disposed  to  make  a  quarrel  with 
me.  The  trouble,  of  course,  was  simply  that 
I  was  jealous  of  him.  I  don't  know,  how 
ever,  on  what  ground  I  could  have  quar 
relled  with  him,  for  I  had  no  definite  rights. 
I  can't  say  what  I  expected — I  can't  say 
what,  as  the  matter  stood,  I  was  prepared 
to  do.  With  my  name  and  my  prospects,  I 
might  perfectly  have  offered  her  my  hand. 
I  am  not  sure  that  she  would  have  accepted 
it ;  I  am  by  no  means  clear  that  she  wanted 
that.  But  she  wanted,  wauted  keenly,  to 
attach  mo  to  her ;  she  wanted  to  have  me 
about.  I  should  have  been  capable  of  giv 
ing  up  everything — England,  rny  career,  my 
family — simply  to  devote  myself  to  her,  to 
live  near  her  and  see  her  every  day." 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.        55 

"Why  didn't  you  do  it,  then?"  asked 
Stanmer. 

"  Why  don't  you?" 

"To  be  a  proper  rejoinder  to  my  ques 
tion,"  he  said,  rather  neatly,  "  yours  should 
be  asked  twenty-five  years  hence." 

"  It  remains  perfectly  true  that  at  a  given 
moment  I  was  capable  of  doing  as  I  say. 
That  was  what  she  wanted — a  rich,  suscep 
tible,  credulous,  convenient  young  English 
man  established  near  her  en  permanence.  And 
yet,"  I  added,  "I  must  do  her  complete  jus 
tice.  I  honestly  believe  she  was  fond  of  me." 
At  this  Stanmer  got  up  and  walked  to  the 
window ;  he  stood  looking  out  a  moment, 
and  then  he  turned  round.  "  You  know  she 
was  older  than  I,"  I  went  on.  "Madame 
Scarabelli  is  older  than  you.  One  day,  in 
the  garden,  her  mother  asked  me,  in  an  an 
gry  tone,  why  I  disliked  Camerino :  for  I 
had  been  at  no  pains  to  conceal  my  feeling 
about  him,  and  something  had  just  happen 
ed  to  bring  it  out.  '  I  dislike  him/  I  said, 
*  because  you  like  him  so  much.'  *  I  assure 
you  I  don't  like  him/  she  answered.  'He 
has  all  the  appearance  of  being  your  lover/ 
I  retorted.  It  was  a  brutal  speech,  certain 
ly,  but  any  other  man  in  my  place  would 
have  made  it.  She  took  it  very  strangely ; 


56        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY. 

she  turned  pale,  but  she  was  not  indignant. 
t  How  can  he  be  my  lover  after  what  he  has 
done?'  she  asked.  'What  has  he  done?7 
She  hesitated  a  good  while ;  then  she  said, 
'He  killed  my  husband.'  'Good  heavens!' 
I  cried;  'and  you  receive  him?'  Do  you 
know  what  she  said  ?  She  said, '  die  vuole  T  " 

"Is  that  all?"  asked  Staumer. 

"  No ;  she  went  on  to  say  that  Camerino 
had  killed  Count  Salvi  in  a  duel,  and  she 
admitted  that  her  husband's  jealousy  had 
been  the  occasion  of  it.  The  Count,  it  ap 
peared,  was  a  monster  of  jealousy;  he  had 
led  her  a  dreadful  life.  He  himself,  mean 
while,  had  been  anything  but  irreproacha 
ble;  he  had  done  a  mortal  injury  to  a  man 
of  whom  he  pretended  to  be  a  friend,  and 
this  affair  had  become  notorious.  The  gentle 
man  in  question  had  demanded  satisfaction 
for  his  outraged  honor;  but  for  some  reason 
or  other  (the  Countess,  to  do  her  justice,  did 
not  tell  me  that  her  husband  was  a  coward) 
he  had  not  as  yet  obtained  it.  The  duel 
with  Camerino  had  come  on  first ;  in  an  ac 
cess  of  jealous  fury,  the  Count  had  struck 
Camerino  in  the  face,  and  this  outrage,  I 
know  not  how  justly,  was  deemed  expiable 
before  the  other.  By  an  extraordinary  ar 
rangement  (the  Italians  have  certainly  no 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.         57 

sense  of  fair  play)  the  other  man  was  allow 
ed  to  be  Camerino's  second.  The  duel  was 
fought  with  swords,  and  the  Count  received 
a-  wound  of  which,  though  at  first  it  was  not 
expected  to  be  fatal,  he  died  on  the  following 
day.  The  matter  was  hushed  up  as  much  as 
possible,  for  the  sake  of  the  Countess's  good 
name,  and  so  successfully  that  it  was  pres 
ently  observed  that,  among  the  imblic,  the 
other  gentleman  had  the  credit  of  having 
put  his  sword  through  M.  de  Salvi.  This 
gentleman  took  a  fancy  not  to  contradict 
the  impression,  and  it  was  allowed  to  sub 
sist.  So  long  as  he  consented,  it  was,  of 
course,  in  Camerino's  interest  not  to  contra 
dict  it,  as  it  left  him  much  more  free  to  keep 
up  his  intimacy  with  the  Countess." 

Staumer  had  listened  to  all  this  with  ex 
treme  attention.  "Why  didn't  slie  contra 
dict  it !" 

I  shrugged  my  shoulders.  "  I  am  bound 
to  believe  it  was  for  the  same  reason.  I  was 
horrified,  at  any  rate,  by  the  whole  story. 
I  was  extremely  shocked  at  the  Countess's 
want  of  dignity  in  continuing  to  see  the  man 
by  whose  hand  her  husband  had  fallen." 

"The  husband  had  been  a  great  brute, 
and  it  was  not  known,"  said  Staumer. 

"  Its  not  being  known  made  no  difference. 


58         THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN   OF  FIFTY. 

And  as  for  Salvi  having  been  a  brute,  that 
is  but  a  way  of  saying  that  his  wife  and  the 
man  whom  his  wife  subsequently  married 
didn't  like  him." 

Stanmer  looked  extremely  meditative ;  his 
eyes  were  fixed  on  mine.  "  Yes,  that  marriage 
is  hard  to  get  over.  It  was  not  becoming." 

"  Ah,"  said  I,  "  what  a  long  breath  I  drew 
when  I  heard  of  it!  I  remember  the  place 
and  the  hour.  It  was  at  a  hill  station  in  In 
dia,  seven  years  after  I  had  left  Florence.  The 
post  brought  me  some  English  papers,  and 
in  one  of  them  was  a  letter  from  Italy,  with 
a  lot  of  so-called  '  fashionable  intelligence.' 
There,  among  various  scandals  in  high  life 
and  other  delectable  items,  I  read  that  the 
Countess  Bianca  Salvi,  famous  for  some  years 
as  the  presiding  genius  of  the  most  agreea 
ble  salon  in  Florence,  was  about  to  bestow  her 
hand  upon  Count  Camerino,  a  distinguished 
Bolognese.  Ah,  my  dear  boy,  it  was  a  tre 
mendous  escape !  I  had  been  ready  to  mar 
ry  the  woman  who  was  capable  of  that! 
But  my  instinct  had  warned  me,  and  I  had 
trusted  my  instinct." 

" i  Instinct's  everything,' as  Falstaff  says," 
and  Stanmer  began  to  laugh.  "Did  you 
tell  Madame  de  Salvi  that  your  instinct  was 
against  her?" 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.         59 

"  No ;  I  told  her  that  she  frightened  me, 
shocked  me,  horrified  me." 

"  That's  about  the  same  thing.  And  what 
did  she  say  ?" 

"  She  asked  me  what  I  would  have.  I 
called  her  friendship  with  Cameriuo  a  scan 
dal,  and  she  answered  that  her  husband  had 
been  a  brute.  Besides,  no  one  knew  it; 
therefore  it  was  no  scandal.  Just  your  ar 
gument.  I  retorted  that  this  was  odious 
reasoning,  and  that  she  had  no  moral  sense. 
We  had  a  passionate  quarrel,  and  I  declared 
I  would  never  see  her  again.  In  the  heat 
of  my  displeasure,  I  left  Florence,  and  I  kept 
my  vow.  I  never  saw  her  again." 

"You  couldn't  have  been  much  in  love 
with  her,"  said  Stanmer. 

"  I  was  not — three  mouths  after." 

"  If  you  had  been,  you  would  have  come 
back — three  days  after." 

"  So,  doubtless,  it  seems  to  you.  All  I 
can  say  is  that  it  was  the  great  effort  of  my 
life.  Being  a  military  man,  I  have  had  on 
various  occasions  to  face  the  enemy.  But  it 
was  not  then  I  needed  my  resolution  ;  it  was 
when  I  left  Florence  in  a  post-chaise." 

Stanmer  turned  about  the  room  two  or 
three  times,  and  then  he  said,  "I  don't  under 
stand  ;  I  don't  understand  why  she  should 


60        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY. 

have  told  you  that  Cameriuo  had  killed  her 
husband.  It  could  only  damage  her." 

"She  was  afraid  it  would  damage  her 
more  that  I  should  think  he  was  her  lover. 
She  wished  to  say  the  thing  that  would  most 
effectually  persuade  me  that  he  was  not  her 
lover — that  he  could  never  be.  And  then  she 
wished  to  get  the  credit  of  being  very  frank." 

"  Good  heavens !  how  you  must  have  ana 
lyzed  her ! "  cried  my  companion,  staring. 

"  There  is  nothing  so  analystic  as  disillu 
sionment.  But  there  it  is.  She  married  Ca- 
merino." 

"  Yes,  I  don't  like  that,"  said  Stanmer.  He 
was  silent  awhile,  and  then  he  added,  "  Per 
haps  she  wouldn't  have  done  so  if  you  had 
remained." 

He  has  a  little  innocent  way ! 

"  Very  likely  she  would  have  dispensed 
with  the  ceremony,"  I  answered,  dryly. 

"  Upon  my  word,"  he  said,  "  you  have  an 
alyzed  her ! " 

"  You  ought  to  be  grateful  to  me.  I  have 
done  for  you  what  you  seem  unable  to  do  for 
yourself." 

"  I  don't  see  any  Camerino  in  my  case,"  he 
said. 

"Perhaps  among  those  gentlemen  I  can 
find  one  for  you." 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.         61 

"  Thank  you !"  he  cried,  "  Til  take  care  of 
that  myself!77  And  he  went  away — satis 
fied,  I  hope. 

Wth. — He's  an  obstinate  little  wretch  ;  it 
irritates  me  to  see  him  sticking  to  it.  Per 
haps  he  is  looking  for  his  Camerino.  I  shall 
leave  him,  at  any  rate,  to  his  fate ;  it  is  grow 
ing  insupportably  hot. 

IWi. — I  went  this  evening  to  bid  farewell 
to  the  Scarabelli.  There  was  no  one  there ; 
she  was  alone  in  her  great  dusky  drawing- 
room,  which  was  lighted  only  by  a  couple 
of  candles,  with  the  immense  windows  open 
over  the  garden.  She  was  dressed  in  white ; 
she  was  deucedly  pretty.  She  asked  me,  of 
course,  why  I  had  been  so  long  without  com 
ing. 

"  I  think  you  say  that  only  for  form,"  I 
answered.  "  I  imagine  you  know." 

"  Che !  what  have  I  done  ?" 

"  Nothing  at  all.  You  are  too  wise  for  that." 

She  looked  at  me  awhile.  "  I  think  you 
are  a  little  crazy." 

"  Ah,  no ;  I  am  only  too  sane.  I  have  too 
much  reason  rather  than  too  little." 

"  You  have,  at  any  rate,  what  we  call  a 
fixed  idea." 

"  There  is  no  harm  in  that,  so  long  as  it's 
a  good  one." 


62        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY. 

"  But  yours  is  abominable,"  she  declared, 
•with  a  laugh. 

"  Of  course  you  can't  like  me  or  my  ideas. 
All  things  considered,  you  have  treated  mo 
with  wonderful  kindness,  and  I  thank  you 
and  kiss  your  hands.  I  leave  Florence  to 
morrow.  " 

"  I  won't  say  I'm  sorry,"  she  said,  laugh 
ing  again.  "  But  I  am  very  glad  to  have 
seen  you.  I  always  wondered  about  you. 
You  are  a  curiosity." 

"  Yes,  you  must  find  me  so.  A  man  who 
can  resist  your  charms!  The  fact  is,  I  can't. 
This  evening  you  are  enchanting  ;  and  it  is 
the  first  time  I  have  been  alone  with  you." 

She  gave  no  heed  to  this ;  she  turned  away. 
But  in  a  moment  she  came  back  and  stood 
looking  at  me,  and  her  beautiful  solemn  eyes 
seemed  to  shine  in  the  dimness  of  the  room. 

"  How  could  you  treat  my  mother  so  ?"  she 
asked. 

"  Treat  her  so  ?" 

"  How  could  you  desert  the  most  charm 
ing  woman  in.  the  world  ?" 

"  It  was  not  a  case  of  desertion ;  and  if  it 
had  been,  it  seems  to  me  she  was  consoled." 

At  this  moment  there  was  the  sound  of  a 
step  in  the  antechamber,  and  I  saw  that  tho 
Countess  perceived  it  to  be  Staniner's. 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.        63 

"  That  wouldn't  have  happened,"  she  mur 
mured.  "  My  poor  mother  needed  a  protec 
tor." 

Stanrner  came  in,  interrupting  our  talk, 
and  looking  at  me,  I  thought,  with  a  little 
air  of  bravado.  He  must  think  me,  indeed, 
a  tiresome,  meddlesome  bore;  and,  upon  my 
word,  turning  it  all  over,  I  wonder  at  his 
docility.  After  all,  he's  five-and-twenty ; 
and  yet,  I  must  add,  it  does  irritate  me — the 
way  he  sticks!  He  was  followed  in  a  mo 
ment  by  two  or  three  of  the  regular  Italians, 
and  I  made  my  visit  short. 

" Good-bye,  Countess,"  I  said;  and  she 
gave  me  her  hand  in  silence.  "  Do  you 
need  a  protector?"  I  added,  softly. 

She  looked  at  me  from  head  to  foot,  and 
then,  almost  angrily,  "  Yes,  sign  ore." 

But,  to  deprecate  her  auger,  I  kept  her 
hand  an  instant,  and  then  bent  my  vener 
able  head  and  kissed  it.  I  think  I  appeased 
her. 

BOLOGNA,  15th. — I  left  Florence  on  the 
12th,  and  have  been  here  these  three  days. 
Delightful  old  Italian  town ;  but  it  lacks  the 
charm  of  my  Florentine  secret. 

I  wrote  that  last  entry  four  days  ago,  late 
at  night,  after  coming  back  from  Casa  Salvi. 
I  afterwards  fell  asleep  in  my  chair ;  the 


64        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN   OF  FIFTY. 

niglit  was  half  over  when  I  woke  np.  In 
stead  of  going  to  bed,  I  stood  a  long  time  at 
the  window,  looking  out  at  the  river.  It 
was  a  warm,  still  night,  and  the  first  faint 
streaks  of  sunrise  were  in  the  sky.  Present 
ly  I  heard  a  slow  footstep  beneath  my  win 
dow,  and,  looking  down,  made  out,  by  the 
aid  of  a  street  lamp,  that  Stanmer  was  but 
just  coming  home.  I  called  to  him  to  come 
to  my  rooms,  and,  after  an  interval,  he  made 
his  appearance. 

"  I  want  to  bid  you  good-bye,"  I  said;  "  I 
shall  depart  in  the  morning.  Don't  go  to 
the  trouble  of  saying  you're  sorry.  Of  course 
you  are  not;  I  must  have  bullied  you  im 
mensely." 

He  made  no  attempt  to  say  he  was  sorry, 
but  he  said  he  was  very  glad  to  have  made 
rny  acquaintance. 

"  Your  conversation,"  he  said,  with  his 
little  innocent  air,  "  has  been  very  sugges 
tive." 

"Have  you  found  Camerino?"  I  asked, 
smiling. 

"  I  have  given  up  the  search." 

"  Well,"  I  said,  "  some  day  when  you  find 
that  you  have  made  a  great  mistake,  re 
member  I  told  you  so." 

He  looked  for  a  minute  as  if  he  were  try- 


THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY.        65 

ing  to  anticipate  that  day  by  the  exercise  of 
his  reason.  "  Has  it  ever  occurred  to  you 
that  you  may  have  made  a  great  mistake  ?" 

"  Oh  yes  ;  everything  occurs  to  one,  soon 
er  or  later.77 

That's  what  I  said  to  him ;  but  I  didn't 
say  that  the  question,  pointed  by  his  candid 
young  countenance,  had,  for  the  moment,  a 
greater  force  than  it  ever  had  before. 

And  then  he  asked  me  whether,  as  things 
had  turned  out,  I  myself  had  been  so  espe 
cially  happy. 

PARIS,  December  17. — A  note  from  young 
Stanmer,  whom  I  saw  in  Florence — a  re 
markable  little  note,  dated  Rome,  and  worth 
transcribing : 

"  MY  DEAR  GENERAL, — I  have  it  at  heart 
to  tell  you  that  I  was  married  a  week  ago  to 
the  Countess  Salvi-Scarabelli.  You  talked 
me  into  a  great  muddle ;  but  a  month  after 
that  it  was  all  very  clear.  Things  that  in 
volve  a  risk  are  like  the  Christian  faith ; 
they  must  be  seen,  from  the  inside. 

"  Yours  ever,  E.  S. 

"P.S. — A  fig  for  analogies — unless  you 
can  find  an  analogy  for  my  happiness !" 

His  happiness  makes  him  very  clever.     I 
5 


66         THE    DIARY   OF  A  MAX  OF  FIFTY. 

hope  it  will  last  —  I  mean  bis  cleverness, 
not  his  happiness. 

LONDON,  April  19,  1877. — Last  night,  at 

Lady  H 's,  I  met  Edmund  Stanmer,  who 

married  Bianca  Salvi's  daughter.  I  heard 
the  other  day  that  they  had  come  to  Eng 
land.  A  handsome  young  fellow,  with  a 
fresh,  contented  face.  He  reminded  me  of 
Florence,  w^hich  I  didn't  pretend  to  forget ; 
but  it  was  rather  awkward,  for  I  remember 
I  used  to  disparage  that  woman  to  him.  I 
had  «i  complete  theory  about  her.  But  he 
didn't  seem  at  all  stiff j  on  the  contrary,  he 
appeared  to  enjoy  our  encounter.  I  asked 
him  if  his  wife  was  there.  I  had  to  do  that. 

"  Oh  yes,  she's  in  one  of  the  other  rooms. 
Come  and  make  her  acquaintance ;  I  want 
you  to  know  her." 

"  You  forget  that  I  do  know  her." 

"  Oh  no,  yon  don't ;  you  never  did."  And 
he  gave  a  little  significant  laugh. 

I  didn't  feel  like  facing  the  ci-devant  Sca- 
rabelli  at  that  moment ;  so  I  said  that  I  was 
leaving,  the  house,  but  that  I  would  do  my 
self  the  honor  of  calling  upon  his  wife.  Wo 
talked  for  a  moment  of  something  else,  and 
then,  suddenly  breaking  off  and  looking  at 
me,  he  laid  his  hand  on  my  arm.  I  must  do  him 
the  justice  to  say  that  he  looks  felicitous. 


THE  DIARY  OF  A   MAN  OF  FIFTY.         67 

"Depend  upon  it,  you  were  wrong/7  lie 
said. 

"  My  dear  young  friend,"  I  answered,  "  im 
agine  the  alacrity  with  which  I  concede  it." 

Something  else  was  again  spoken  of,  but 
in  an  instant  he  repeated  his  movement. 
"  Depend  upon  it,  you  were  wrong." 

"I  am  sure  the  Countess  has  forgiven 
me,"  I  said,  "and  in  that  case  you  ought  to 
bear  no  grudge.  As  I  have  had  the  honor 
to  say,  I  will  call  upon  her  immediately." 

"I  was  not  alluding  to  my  wife,"  he  an 
swered.  "  I  was  thinking  of  your  own 
story." 

"  My  own  story  ?" 

"  So  many  years  ago.  Was  it  not  rather  a 
mistake  ?" 

I  looked  at  him  a  moment  j  he's  positive 
ly  rosy. 

"  That's  not  a  question  to  solve  in  a  Lon 
don  crush,"  and  I  turned  away. 

2.2fZ. — I  haven't  yet  called  on  the  ci-devant. 
I'm  afraid  of  finding  her  at  home.  And  that 
boy's  words  have  been  thrumming  in  my 
ears:  "Depend  upon  it,  you  were  wrong. 
Wasn't  it  rather  a  mistake  ?"  Was  I  wrong  ? 
tvas  it  a  mistake  ?  Was  I  too  cautious — too 
suspicious — too  logical  ?  Was  it  really  a  pro 
tector  she  needed  ? — a  man  who  might  have 


68        THE  DIARY  OF  A  MAN  OF  FIFTY. 

helped  her?  Would  it  have  been  for  his 
benefit  to  believe  in  her  ?  and  was  her  fault 
only  that  I  had  forsaken  her  ?  Was  the 
poor  woman  very  unhappy  ?  God  forgive 
me,  how  the  questions  come  crowding  in ! 
If  I  marred  her  happiness,  I  certainly  didn't 
make  my  own.  And  I  might  have  made  it 
— eh  ?  That's  a  charming  discovery  for  a 
man  of  my  age ! 


A    BUNDLE    OF    LETTEES 


Copyright,  18SO,  by  HEXRY  JAMES,  Jr. 


All  rights  reserved. 


A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS. 


i. 

FROM  Miss  MIRANDA  HOPE,  IN  PARIS,  TO 

MRS.  ABRAHAM  C.  HOPE,  AT 

BANGOR,  MAINE. 

September  5, 1879. 
MY  DEAR  MOTHER, — 

I  have  kept  you  posted  as  far  as  Tuesday 
week  last,  and,  although  my  letter  will  not 
have  reached  you  yet,  I  will  begin  another 
before  my  news  accumulates  too  much.  I  am 
glad  you  show  my  letters  round  in  the  fam 
ily,  for  I  like  them  all  to  know  what  I  am 
doing,  and  I  can't  write  to  every  one,  though 
I  try  to  answer  all  reasonable  expectations. 
But  there  are  a  great  many  unreasonable 
ones,  as  I  suppose  you  know  —  not  yours, 
dear  mother,  for  I  am  bound  to  say  that  you 
never  required  of  me  more  than  was  nat 
ural.  You  see  you  are  reaping  your  reward ; 
I  write  to  you  before  I  write  to  any  one  else. 


72  A  BUNDLE   OF  LETTERS. 

There  is  one  thing,  I  hope — that  you  don't 
show  any  of  ray  letters  to  William  Platt. 
If  he  wants  to  see  any  of  my  letters,  he 
knows  the  right  Tray  to  go  to  work.  I 
wouldn't  have  him  see  one  of  these  letters, 
written  for  circulation  in  the  family,  for 
anything  in  the  world.  If  he  wants  one  for 
himself,  he  has  got  to  write  to  me  first.  Let 
him  write  to  me  first,  and  then  I  will  see 
about  answering  him.  You  can  show  him 
this  if  you  like  ;  but  if  you  show  him  any 
thing  more,  I  will  never  write  to  you  again. . . 

I  told  you  in  my  last  about  my  farewell  to 
England,  my  crossing  the  Channel,  and  my 
first  impressions  of  Paris.  I  have  thought  a 
great  deal  about  that  lovely  England  since 
I  left  it,  and  all  the  famous  historic  scenes  I 
visited ;  but  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  is  not  a  country  in  which  I  should 
care  to  reside.  The  position  of  woman  does 
not  seem  to  me  at  all  satisfactory,  and  that 
is  a  point,  you  know,  on  which  I  feel  very 
strongly.  It  seems  to  me  that  in  England 
they  play  a  very  faded-out  part,  and  those 
with  whom  I  conversed  had  a  kind  of  de 
pressed  and  humiliated  tone ;  a  little  dull, 
tame  look,  as  if  they  were  used  to  being 
snubbed  and  bullied,  which  made  me  want 
to  give  them  a  good  shaking.  There  are  a 


A  BUNDLE   OF  LETTEES.  73 

great  many  people  —  and  a  great  many 
things,  too — over  here  that  I  should  like  to 
perform  that  operation  upon.  I  should  like 
to  shake  the  starch  out  of  some  of  them,  and 
the  dust  out  of  the  others.  I  know  fifty 
girls  in  Bangor  that  come  much  more  up  to 
my  notion  of  the  stand  a  truly  noble  woman 
should  take  than  those  young  ladies  in  Eng 
land.  But  they  had  a  most  lovely  way  of 
speaking  (in  England),  and  the  men  are  re- 
marlcably  handsome.  (You  can  show  this  to 
William  Platt,  if  you  like.) 

I  gave  you  my  first  impressions  of  Paris, 
which  quite  came  up  to  my  expectations, 
much  as  I  had  heard  and  read  about  it.  The 
objects  of  interest  are  extremely  numerous, 
and  the  climate  is  remarkably  cheerful  and 
sunny.  I  should  say  the  position  of  woman 
here  is  considerably  higher,  though  by  no 
means  coming  up  to  the  American  standard. 
The  manners  of  the  people  are  in  some  re 
spects  extremely  peculiar,  and  I  feel  at  last 
that  I  am  indeed  in  foreign  parts.  It  is,  how 
ever,  a  truly  elegant  city  (very  superior  to 
New  York),  and  I  have  spent  a  great  deal  of 
time  in  visiting  the  various  monuments  and 
palaces.  I  won't  give  you  an  account  of  all 
my  wanderings,  though  I  have  been  most 
indefatigable ;  for  I  am  keeping,  as  I  told 


74  A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS. 

you  before,  a  most  exhaustive  journal,  which 
I  will  allow  you  the  privilege  of  reading  on 
my  return  to  Bangor.  I  am  getting  on  re 
markably  well,  and  I  must  say  I  am  some 
times  surprised  at  my  universal  good  fort 
une.  It  only  shows  what  a  little  energy 
and  common-sense  will  accomplish.  I  have 
discovered  none  of  those  objections  to  a 
young  lady  travelling  in  Europe  by  herself 
of  which  we  heard  so  much  before  I  left,  and 
I  don't  expect  I  ever  shall,  for  I  certainly 
don't  mean  to  look  for  them.  I  know  what 
I  want,  and  I  always  manage  to  get  it. 

I  have  received  a  great  deal  of  politeness 
— some  of  it  really  most  pressing — and  I  have 
experienced  no  drawbacks  whatever.  I  have 
made  a  great  many  pleasant  acquaintances 
in  travelling  round  (both  ladies  and  gentle 
men),  and  had  a  great  many  most  interesting 
talks.  I  have  collected  a  great  deal  of  in 
formation,  for  which  I  refer  you  to  my  jour 
nal.  I  assure  you  my  journal  is  going  to  be 
a  splendid  thing.  I  do  just  exactly  as  I  do 
in  Bangor,  and  I  find  I  do  perfectly  right ; 
and,  at  any  rate,  I  don't  care  if  I  don't.  I 
didn't  come  to  Europe  to  lead  a  merely  con 
ventional  life;  I  could  do  that  at  Bangor. 
Yon  know  I  never  icould  do  it  at  Bangor;  so 
it  isn't  likely  I  am  going  to  make  myself 


A  BUNDLE   OF  LETTERS.  75 

miserable  over  here.  So  long  as  I  accom 
plish  what  I  desire,  and  make  my  money 
hold  out,  I  shall  regard  the  thing  as  a  suc 
cess.  Sometimes  I  feel  rather  lonely,  espe 
cially  in  the  evening ;  but  I  generally  man 
age  to  interest  myself  in  something  or  in 
some  one.  In  the  evening  I  usually  read  up 
about  the  objects  of  interest  I  have  seen 
during  the  day,  or  I  post  up  my  journal. 
Sometimes  I  go  to  the  theatre;  or  else  I 
play  the  piano  in  the  public  parlor.  The 
public  parlor  at  the  hotel  isn't  much;  but 
the  piano  is  better  than  that  fearful  old 
thing  at  the  Sebago  House. 

Sometimes  I  go  down-stairs  and  talk  to 
the  lady  who  keeps  the  books — a  French 
lady,  who  is  remarkably  polite.  She  is  very 
pretty,  and  always  wears  a  black  dress,  with 
the  most  beautiful  fit;  she  speaks  a  little 
English  ;  she  tells  me  she  had  to  learn  it,  in 
order  to  converse  with  the  Americans  who 
come  in  such  numbers  to  this  hotel.  She 
has  given  me  a  great  deal  of  information 
about  the  position  of  woman  in  France,  and 
much  of  it  is  very  encouraging.  But  she 
has  told  me,  at  the  same  time,  some  things 
that  I  should  not  like  to  write  to  you  (I  am 
hesitating  even  about  putting  them  into  my 
journal),  especially  if  my  letters  are  to  be 


76  A  BUNDLE   OF   LETTERS. 

handed  round  in  the  family.  I  assure  you 
they  appear  to  talk  ahout  things  here  that 
we  never  think  of  mentioning  at  Baugor,  or 
even  of  thinking  about.  She  seems  to  think 
she  can  tell  me  everything,  because  I  told 
her  I  was  travelling  for  general  culture. 
Well,  I  do  want  to  know  so  much  that  it 
seems  sometimes  as  if  I  wanted  to  know 
everything ;  and  yet  there  are  some  things 
that  I  think  I  don't  want  to  know.  But, 
as  a  general  thing,  everything  is  intensely 
interesting;  I  don't  mean  only  everything 
that  this  French  lady  tells  me,  but  every 
thing  I  see  and  hear  for  myself.  I  feel  real 
ly  as  if  I  should  gain  all  I  desire. 

I  meet  a  great  many  Americans,  who,  as  a 
general  thing,  I  must  say,  are  not  as  polite 
to  me  as  the  people  over  here.  The  people 
over  here  —  especially  the  gentlemen  —  are 
much  more  what  I  should  call  attentive.  I 
don't  know  whether  Americans  are  more 
sincere;  I  haven't  yet  made  up  my  mind 
about  that.  The  only  drawback  I  experi 
ence  is  when  Americans  sometimes  express 
surprise  that  I  should  be  travelling  round 
alone ;  so  you  see  it  doesn't  come  from  Eu 
ropeans.  I  always  have  my  answer  ready : 
"For  general  culture,  to  acquire  the  lan 
guages,  and  to  see  Europe  for  myself;"  and 


A  BUNDLE   OF  LETTERS.  77 

that  generally  seems  to  satisfy  them.  Dear 
mother,  my  money  holds  out  very  well,  and 
it  is  real  interesting. 


II. 

FROM  THE  SAME  TO  THE  SAME. 

September  16. 

SINCE  I  last  wrote  to  yon  I  have  left  that 
hotel,  and  come  to  live  in  a  French  family. 
It's  a  kind  of  boarding-house  combined  with 
a  kind  of  school ;  only  it's  not  like  an  Amer 
ican  boarding-house,  or  like  an  American 
school  either.  There  are  four  or  five  people 
here  that  have  come  to  learn  the  language — 
not  to  take  lessons,  but  to  have  an  opportu 
nity  for  conversation.  I  was  very  glad  to 
come  to  such  a  place,  for  I  had  begun  to  re 
alize  that  I  was  not  making  much  progress 
with  the  French.  It  seemed  to  me  that  I 
should  feel  ashamed  to  have  spent  two 
months  in  Paris  and  not  have  acquired  more 
insight  into  the  language.  I  had  always 
heard  so  much  of  French  conversation,  and 
I  found  I  was  having  no  more  opportunity 
to  practise  it  than  if  I  had  remained  at  Ban- 
gor.  In  fact,  I  used  to  hear  a  great  deal 


78  A  BUNDLE   OF  LETTERS. 

more  at  Bangor,  from  those  French  Canadi 
ans  that  came  down  to  cut  the  ice,  than  I 
saw  I  should  ever  hear  at  that  hotel.  The 
lady  that  kept  the  books  seemed  to  want  so 
much  to  talk  to  me  in  English  (for  the  sake 
of  practice,  too,  I  suppose)  that  I  couldn't 
bear  to  let  her  know  I  didn't  like  it.  The 
chambermaid  was  Irish,  and  all  the  waiters 
were  German,  so  that  I  never  heard  a  word 
of  French  spoken.  I  suppose  you  might 
hear  a  great  deal  in  the  shops ;  only,  as  I 
don't  buy  anything — I  prefer  to  spend  my 
money  for  purposes  of  culture — I  don't  have 
that  advantage. 

I  have  been  thinking  some  of  taking  a 
teacher,  but  I  am  well  acquainted  with  the 
grammar  already,  and  teachers  always  keep 
you  bothering  over  the  verbs.  I  was  a  good 
deal  troubled,  for  I  felt  as  if  I  didn't  want 
to  go  away  without  having,  at  least,  got  a 
general  idea  of  French  conversation.  The 
theatre  gives  you  a  good  deal  of  insight,  and, 
as  I  told  you  in  my  last,  I  go  a  good  deal  to 
places  of  amusement.  I  find  no  difficulty 
whatever  in  going  to  such  places  alone, 
and  am  always  treated  with  the  politeness 
which,  as  I  told  you  before,  I  encounter  ev 
erywhere.  I  see  plenty  of  other  ladies  alone 
(mostly  French),  and  they  generally  seem  to 


A  BUNDLE   OF  LETTERS.  79 

be  enjoying  themselves  as  much  as  I.  But 
at  the  theatre  every  one  talks  so  fast  that  I 
can  scarcely  make  out  what  they  say ;  and, 
"besides,  there  are  a  great  many  vulgar  ex 
pressions  which  it  is  unnecessary  to  learn. 
But  it  was  the  theatre,  nevertheless,  that 
put  me  on  the  track.  The  very  next  day 
after  I  wrote  to  you  last  I  went  to  the  Pa 
lais  Royal,  which  is  one  of  the  principal  the 
atres  in  Paris.  It  is  very  small,  but  it  is 
very  celebrated ;  and  in  my  guide-book  it  is 
marked  with  two  stars,  which  is  a  sign  of  im 
portance  attached  only  to  first-class  objects 
of  interest.  But  after  I  had  been  there  half 
an  hour  I  found  I  couldn't  understand  a  sin 
gle  word  of  the  play,  they  gabbled  it  off  so 
fast,  and  they  made  use  of  such  peculiar  ex 
pressions.  I  felt  a  good  deal  disappointed 
and  troubled ;  I  was  afraid  I  shouldn't  gain 
all  I  had  come  for.  But  while  I  was  thinking 
it  over — thinking  what  I  should  do — I  heard 
two  gentlemen  talking  behind  me.  It  was 
between  the  acts,  and  I  couldn't  help  listen 
ing  to  what  they  said.  They  were  talking 
English,  but  I  guess  they  were  Americans. 

"  Well,"  said  one  of  them,  "  it  all  depends 
on  what  you  are  after.  I'm  after  French ; 
that's  what  I'm  after." 

"Well,"  said  the  other,  "I'm  after  Art." 


80  A  BUNDLE   OF  LETTERS. 

"Well,"  said  the  first,  "I'm  after  Art  too; 
but  I'm  after  French  most." 

Then,  dear  mother,  I  am  sorry  to  say  the 
second  one  swore  a  little.  He  said,  "Oh, 
damn  French !" 

"  No,  I  won't  damn  French,"  said  his  friend. 
"  I'll  acquire  it — that's  what  I'll  do  with  it. 
I'll  go  right  into  a  family." 

"  What  family  '11  you  go  into  P 

"Into  some  French  family.  That's  the 
only  way  to  do — to  go  to  some  place  where 
you  can  talk.  If  you're  after  Art,  you  want 
to  stick  to  the  galleries ;  you  want  to  go 
right  through  the  Louvre  room  by  room; 
you  want  to  take  a  room  a  day,  or  something 
of  that  sort.  But  if  you  want  to  acquire 
French,  the  thing  is  to  look  out  for  a  family. 
There  are  lots  of  French  families  here  that 
take  you  to  board  and  teach  you.  My  sec 
ond  cousin  —  that  young  lady  I  told  you 
about — she  got  in  with  a  crowd  like  that, 
and  they  booked  her  right  up  in  three 
mouths.  They  just  took  her  right  in,  and 
they  talked  to  her.  That's  what  they  do  to 
you  ;  they  set  you  right  down,  and  they  talk 
at  you.  You've  got  to  understand  them; 
you  can't  help  yourself.  That  family  my 
cousin  was  with  has  moved  away  some 
where,  or  I  should  try  and  get  in  with  them. 


A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS.  81 

They  were  very  smart  people,  that  family. 
After  she  left,  my  cousin  corresponded  with 
them  in  French.  But  I  mean  to  find  some 
other  crowd,  if  it  takes  a  lot  of  trouble  !" 

I  listened  to  all  this  with  great  interest, 
and  when  he  spoke,  about  his  cousin  I  was 
on  the  point  of  turning  around  to  ask  him 
the  address  of  the  family  that  she  was  with ; 
but  the  next  moment  he  said  they  had  moved 
away ;  so  I  sat  still.  The  other  gentleman, 
however,  didn't  seem  to  be  affected  in  the 
same  way  as  I  was. 

•  "  Well,"  he  said,  "you  may  follow  up  that 
if  you.  like ;  I  mean  to  follow  up  the  pict 
ures.  I  don't  believe  there  is  ever  going  to 
be  any  considerable  demand  in  the  United 
States  for  French ;  but  I  can  promise  you  that 
in  about  ten  years  there'll  be  a  big  demand 
for  Art !  And  it  won't  be  temporary,  either." 

That  remark  may  be  very  true,  but  I  don't 
care  anything  about  the  demand ;  I  want  to 
know  French  for  its  own  sake.  I  don't  want 
to  think  I  have  been  all  this  while  without 
having  gained  an  insight.  .  .  .  The  very  next 
day  I  asked  the  lady  who  kept  the  books  at 
the  hotel  whether  she  knew  of  any  family 
that  could  take  me  to  board  and  give  me  the 
benefit  of  their  conversation.  She  instantly 
threw  up  her  hands,  with  several  little  shrill 
6 


82  A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS. 

cries  (in  their  French  "way,  you  know),  and 
told  me  that  her  dearest  friend  kept  a  regu 
lar  place  of  that  kind.  If  she  had  known  I 
was  looking  out  for  such  a  place,  she  would 
have  told  me  before ;  she  had  not  spoken  of 
it  herself,  because  she  didn't  wish  to  injure 
the  hotel  by  being  the  cause  of  my  going 
away.  She  told  me  this  was  a  charming 
family,  who  had  often  received  American  la 
dies  (and  others  as  well)  who  wished  to  fol 
low  up  the  language,  and  she  was  sure  I 
would  be  delighted  with  them.  So  she  gave 
me  their  address,  and  offered  to  go  with  me 
to  introduce  me.  But  I  was  in  such  a  hurry 
that  I  went  oif  by  myself,  and  I  had  no 
trouble  in  finding  these  good  people.  They 
w^ere  delighted  to  receive  me,  and  I  was  very 
much  pleased  with  what  I  saw  of  them. 
They  seemed  to  have  plenty  of  conversation, 
and  there  will  be  no  trouble  about  that. 

I  came  here  to  stay  about  three  days  ago, 
and  by  this  time  I  have  seen  a  great  deal  of 
them.  The  price  of  board  struck  me  as 
rather  high,  but  I  must  remember  that  a 
quantity  of  conversation  is  thrown  in.  I  have 
a  very  pretty  little  room — without  any  car 
pet,  but  with  seven  mirrors,  two  clocks,  and 
rive  curtains.  I  was  rather  disappointed  af 
ter  I  arrived  to  find  that  there  are  several 


A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS.  83 

other  Americans  here  for  the  same  purpose 
as  myself.  At  least  there  are  three  Ameri 
cans  and  two  English  people,  and  also  a  Ger- 
ina-n  gentleman.  I  am  afraid,  therefore,  our 
conversation  will  be  rather  mixed,  hut  I  have 
not  yet  time  to  judge.  I  try  to  talk  with 
Madame  de  Maisonronge  all  I  can  (she  is 
the  lady  of  the  house,  and  the  real  family 
consists  only  of  herself  and  her  two  daugh 
ters).  They  are  all  most  elegant,  interest 
ing  women,  and  I  am  sure  we  shall  become 
intimate  friends.  I  will  write  you  more 
about  them  in  my  next.  Tell  William  Platt 
I  don't  caro  what  he  does. 


III. 

FROM  Miss  VIOLET  RAY,  IN  PARIS,  TO  Miss 
AGNES  RICH,  IN  NEW  YORK. 

September  21. 

WE  had  hardly  got  here  when  father  re 
ceived  a  telegram  saying  he*  would  have  to 
corne  right  back  to  New  York.  It  was  for 
something  about  his  business — I  don't  know 
exactly  what ;  you  know  I  never  understand 
those  things,  and,  what's  more,  I  don't  want 
to.  We  had  just  got  settled  at  the  hotel,  in 


84  A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS, 

some  charming  rooms,  and  mother  and  I,  as 
you  may  imagine,  were  greatly  annoyed. 
Father  is  extremely  fussy,  as  you  know,  and 
his  first  idea,  as  soon  as  he  found  he  should 
have  to  go  back,  was  that  we  should  go  back 
with  him.  He  declared  he  would  never  leave 
us  in  Paris  alone,  and  that  we  must  return 
and  come  out  again.  I  don't  know  what  he 
thought  would  happen  to  us ;  I  suppose  he 
thought  we  would  be  too  extravagant.  It's 
father's  theory  that  we  are  always  running 
up  bills,  whereas  a  little  observation  would 
show  him  that  we  wear  the  same  old  rags 
FOR  MONTHS.  But  father  has  no  observa 
tion  ;  he  has  nothing  but  theories.  Mother 
and  I,  however,  have,  fortunately,  a  great 
deal  of  practice,  and  we  succeeded  in  making 
him  understand  that  we  wouldn't  budge 
from  Paris,  and  that  we  would  rather  be 
chopped  into  small  pieces  than  cross  that 
dreadful  ocean  again.  So,  at  last,  he  decided 
to  go  back  alone,  and  to  leave  us  here  for 
three  months.  But,  to  show  you  how  fussy 
he  is,  he  refuse'd  to  let  us  stay  at  the  hotel, 
and  insisted  that  we  should  go  into  &  family. 
I  don't  know  what  put  such  an  idea  into  his 
head,  unless  it  was  some  advertisement  that 
he  saw  in  one  of  the  American  papers  that 
are  published  here. 


A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS.  85 

There  are  families  here  who  receive  Amer- 
icau  and  English  people  to  live  with  them, 
under  the  pretence  of  teaching  them  French. 
You  may  imagine  what  people  they  are — I 
mean  the  families  themselves.  But  the  Amer 
icans  who  choose  this  peculiar  manner  of 
seeing  Paris  must  be  actually  just  as  bad. 
Mother  and  I  were  horrified,  and  declared 
that  main  force  should  not  remove  us  from 
the  hotel.  But  father  has  a  way  of  arriving 
at  his  ends  which  is  more  efficient  than  vio 
lence.  He  worries  and  fusses;  he  "nags," 
as  we  used  to  say  at  school;  and  when 
mother  and  I  are  quite  worn  out,  his  triumph 
is  assured.  Mother  is  usually  worn  out  more 
easily  than  I,  and  she  ends  by  siding  with 
father ;  so  that  at  last,  when  they  combine 
their  forces  against  poor  little  me,  I  have  to 
succumb.  You  should  have  heard  the  way 
father  went  on  about  this  "family"  plan; 
he  talked  to  every  one  he  saw  about  it ;  he 
used  to  go  round  to  the  banker's  and  talk  to 
the  people  there — the  people  in  the  post-of 
fice  ;  he  used  to  try  and  exchange  ideas  about 
it  with  the  waiters  at  the  hotel.  He  said  it 
would  be  more  safe,  more  respectable,  more 
economical ;  that  I  should  perfect  my  French ; 
that  mother  would  learn  how  a  French  house 
hold  is  conducted ;  that  he  should  feel  more 


88  A  BUNDLE   OF  LETTERS. 

easy ;  and  five  hundred  reasons  more.  They 
were  none  of  them  good,  but  that  made  no 
diiference.  It's  all  humbug  his  talking  about 
economy,  when  every  one  knows  that  busi 
ness  in  America  has  completely  recovered, 
that  the  prostration  is  all  over,  and  that  im 
mense  fortunes  are  being  made.  We  have 
been  economizing  for  the  last  five  years,  and 
I  supposed  we  came  abroad  to  reap  the  ben 
efits  of  it. 

As  for  my  French,  it  is  quite  as  perfect  as 
I  want  it  to  be.  (I  assure  you  I  am  often 
surprised  at  my  own  fluency,  and,  when  I 
get  a  little  more  practice  in  the  genders  and 
the  idioms,  I  shall  do  very  well  in  this  re 
spect.)  To  make  a  long  story  short,  how 
ever,  father  carried  his  point,  as  usual :  moth 
er  basely  deserted  me  at  the  last  moment ; 
and,  after  holding  out  alone  for  three  days, 
I  told  them  to  do  with  me  what  they  pleased ! 
Father  lost  three  steamers  in  succession  by 
remaining  in  Paris  to  argue  with  me.  You 
know  he  is  like  the  parson  in  Goldsmith's 
"Deserted  Village"  —  "e'en  though  van 
quished,  he  could  argue  still."  He  and 
mother  went  to  look  at  some  seventeen  fam 
ilies  (they  had  got  the  addresses  somewhere), 
while  I  retired  to  my  sofa,  and  would  have 
nothing  to  do  Avith  it.  At  last  they  made 


A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS.  87 

arrangements,  and  I  was  transported  to  the 
establishment  from  which  I  now  write  you. 
I  write  you  from  the  bosom  of  a  Parisian  me 
nage — from  the  depths  of  a  second-rate  board 
ing-house. 

Father  only  left  Paris  after  he  had  seen 
us  what  he  calls  comfortably  settled  here, 
and  had  informed  Madame  de  Maisonrouge 
(the  mistress  of  the  establishment — the  head 
of  the  "family")  that  he  wished  my  French 
pronunciation  especially  attended  to.  The 
pronunciation,  as  it  happens,  is  just  what  I 
am  most  at  home  in ;  if  he  had  said  my  gen 
ders  or  my  idioms,  there  would  have  been 
some  sense.  But  poor  father  has  no  tact, 
and  this  defect  is  especially  marked  since 
he  has  been  in  Europe.  He  will  be  absent, 
however,  for  three  months,  and  mother  and 
I  shall. breathe  a  little  more  freely;  the  sit 
uation  will  be  less  intense.  I  must  confess 
that  we  breathe  more  freely  than  I  expected 
in  this  place,  where  we  have  been  for  about 
a  week.  I  was  sure,  before  we  came,  that  it 
would  prove  to  be  an  establishment  of  the 
lowest  description;  but  I  must  say  that  in  this 
respect  I  am  agreeably  disappointed.  The 
French  are  so  clever  that  they  know  even 
how  to  manage  a  place  of  this  kind.  Of 
course  it  is  very  disagreeable  to  live  with 


88  A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS. 

strangers ;  but  as,  after  all,  if  I  were  not 
staying  with  Madame  de  Maisonrouge  I 
should  not  be  living  in  the  Faubourg  St.- 
Germain,  I  don't  know  that,  from  the  point 
of  view  of  exclusiveness,  it  is  any  great  loss 
to  be  here. 

Our  rooms  are  very  prettily  arranged,  and 
the  table  is  remarkably  good.  Mamma  thinks 
the  whole  thing — the  place  and  the  people, 
the  manners  and  customs — very  amusing; 
but  mamma  is  very  easily  amused.  As  for 
me,  you  know,  all  that  I  ask  is  to  be  let 
alone,  and  not  to  have  people's  society  forced 
upon  me.  I  have  never  wanted  for  society 
of  my  own  choosing,  and,  so  long  as  I  retain 
possession  of  my  faculties,  I  don't  suppose  I 
ever  shall.  As  I  said,  however,  the  place  is 
very  well  managed,  and  I  succeed  in  doing 
as  I  please,  which,  you  know,  is  my  most 
cherished  pursuit.  Madame  de  Maisonrouge 
has  a  great  deal  of  tact — much  more  than 
poor  lather.  She  is  what  they  call  here  a 
belle  fcmme,  which  means  that  she  is  a  tall, 
ugly  woman,  with  style.  She  dresses  very 
well,  and  has  a  great  deal  of  talk;  but, 
though  she  is  a  very  good  imitation  of  a 
lady,  I  never  see  her  behind  the  dinner-table, 
in  the  evening,  smiling  and  bowiug  as  tho 
people  come  in,  and  looking  all  the  while  at 


A  BUNDLE   OF  LETTERS.  89 

the  dishes  and  the  servants,  without  think 
ing  of  a  dame  de  comptoir  blooming  in  a  cor 
ner  of  a  shop  or  a  restaurant.  I  am  sure 
that,  in  spite  of  her  fine  name,  she  was  once 
a  dame  de  comptoir.  I  am  also  sure  that,  in 
spite  of  her  smiles  and  the  pretty  things  she 
says  to  every  one,  she  hates  us  all,  and  would 
like  to  murder  us.  She  is  a  hard,  clever 
Frenchwoman,  who  would  like  to  amuse  her 
self  and  enjoy  her  Paris,  and  she  must  be 
bored  to  death  in  passing  all  her  time  in  the 
midst  of  stupid  English  people  who  mumble 
broken  French  at  her.  Some  day  she  will 
poison  the  soup  or  the  vin  rouge;  but  I  hope 
that  will  not  be  until  after  mother  and  I 
shall  have  left  her.  She  has  two  daughters, 
who,  except  that  one  is  decidedly  pretty,  are 
meagre  imitations  of  herself. 

The  "  family,"  for  the  rest,  consists  alto 
gether  of  our  beloved  comnatriots,  and  of 
still  more  beloved  Englanders.  There  is  an 
Englishman  here  with  his  sister,  and  they 
seem  to  be  rather  nice  people.  He  is  remark 
ably  handsome,  but  excessively  affected  and 
patronizing,  especially  to  us  Americans ;  and 
I  hope  to  have  a  chance  of  biting  his  head 
off  before  very  long.  The  sister  is  very  pret 
ty,  and,  apparently,  very  nice ;  but  in  cos 
tume  she  is  Britannia  incarnate.  There  is  a 


90  A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS. 

very  pleasant  little  Frenchman — when  they 
are  nice  they  are  charming — and  a  German 
doctor,  a  big  blond  man,  who  looks  like  a 
great  white  bull;  and  two  Americans,  be 
sides  mother  and  me.  One  of  them  is  a  yonug 
man  from  Boston — an  esthetic  young  man, 
who  talks  about  its  being  "a  real  Corot 
day,"  etc.,  and  a  young  woman — a  girl,  a  fe- 
inale,  I  don't  know  what  to  call  her — from 
Vermont,  or  Minnesota,  or  some  such  place. 
This  young  woman  is  the  most  extraordina 
ry  specimen  of  artless  Yankeeism  that  I  ever 
encountered ;  she  is  really  too  horrible.  I 
have  been  three  times  to  Clementine  about 
your  underskirt,  etc. 


IV. 

FKOM  Louis  LEVERETT,  IN  PARIS,  TO  HAR 
VARD  TREMONT,  IN  BOSTON. 

September  25. 
MY  DEAR  HARVARD, — 

I  have  carried  out  my  plan,  of  which  I 
gave  you  a  hint  in  my  last,  and  I  only  regret 
that  I  should  not  have  done  it  before.  It  is 
human  nature,  after  all,  that  is  the  most  in 
teresting  thing  in  the  world,  and  it  only  re- 


A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS.  91 

veals  itself  to  the  truly  earnest  seeker.  There 
is  a  want  of  earnestness  in  that  life  of  hotels 
and  railroad  trains  which  so  many  of  our 
countrymen  are  content  to  lead  in  this 
strange  Old  World,  and  I  was  distressed  to 
find  how  far  I  myself  had  been  led  along  the 
dusty,  beaten  track.  I  had,  however,  con 
stantly  wanted  to  turn  aside  into  more  un 
frequented  ways ;  to  plunge  beneath  the  sur 
face  and  see  what  I  should  discover.  But 
the  opportunity  had  always  been  missing. 
Somehow,  I  never  meet  those  opportunities 
that  we  hear  about  and  read  about  —  the 
things  that  happen  to  people  in  novels  and 
biographies.  And  yet  I  am  always  on  the 
watch  to  take  advantage  of  any  opening 
that  may  present  itself;  I  am  always  look 
ing  out  for  experiences,  for  sensations  —  I 
might  almost  say  for  adventures. 

The  great  thing  is  to  live,  you  know — to 
feel,  to  be  conscious  of  one's  possibilities ; 
not  to  pass  through  life  mechanically  and 
insensibly,  like  a  letter  through  the  post-of 
fice.  There  are  times,  my  dear  Harvard, 
when  I  feel  as  if  I  were  really  capable  of  ev 
erything — capable  de  tout,  as  they  say  here — 
of  the  greatest  excesses  as  well  as  the  great 
est  heroism.  Oh,  to  be  able  to  say  that  one 
has  lived  —  qiCon  a  vecu,  as  they  say  here : 


92  A  BUNDLE   OF  LETTERS. 

that  idea  exercises  an  indefinable  attraction 
for  me.  You  will,  perhaps,  reply,  it  is  easy 
to  say  it ;  but  the  thing  is  to  make  people 
believe  you!  And  then  I  don't  want  any 
second-hand,  spurious  sensations;  I  want 
the  knowledge  that  leaves  a  trace  —  that 
leaves  strange  scars  and  stains  and  reveries 
behind  it!  But  I  am  afraid  I  shock  you; 
perhaps  even  frighten  you. 

If  you  repeat  my  remarks  to  any  of  the 
West  Cedar  Street  circle,  be  sure  you  tone 
them  down  as  your  discretion  will  suggest. 
For  yourself,  you  will  know  that  I  have  al 
ways  had  an  intense  desire  to  see  something 
of  real  French  life.  You  are  acquainted  with 
my  great  sympathy  with  the  French ;  with 
my  natural  tendency  to  enter  into  the  French 
way  of  looking  at  life.  I  sympathize  with 
the  artistic  temperament ;  I  remember  you 
used  sometimes  to  hint  to  me  that  you 
thought  my  own  temperament  too  artistic. 
I  don't  think  that  in  Boston  there  is  any  real 
sympathy  with  the  artistic  temperament; 
we  tend  to  make  everything  a  matter  of 
right  and  wrong.  And  in  Boston  one  can't 
live — on  nepeutpas  vivre,  as  they  say  here.  I 
don't  mean  one  can't  reside  —  for  a  great 
many  people  manage  that;  but  one  can't 
live  a3sthetically,  I  may  almost  venture  to 


A  BUNDLE   OF   LETTERS.  93 

say  sensuously.  This  is  why  I  have  always 
been  so  much  drawn  to  the  French,  who  are 
so  aesthetic,  so  sensuous.  I  am  so  sorry  that 
Th^ophile  Gautier  has  passed  away ;  I  should 
have  liked  so  much  to  go  and  see  him  and 
tell  him  all  that  I  owe  him.  He  was  living 
when  I  was  here  before ;  hut,  you  know,  at 
that  time  I  was  travelling  with  the  John 
sons,  who  are  not  aesthetic,  and  who  used  to 
make  me  feel  rather  ashamed  of  my  artistic 
temperament.  If  I  had  gone  to  see  the  great 
apostle  of  beauty,  I  should  have  had  to  go 
clandestinely — en  cachette,  as  they  say  here ; 
and  that  is  not  my  nature;  I  like  to  do  ev 
erything  frankly,  freely,  na'ivcment,  au  grand 
jour.  That  is  the  great  thing — to  be  free, 
to  be  frank,  to  be  naif.  Doesn't  Matthew  Ar 
nold  say  that  somewhere — or  is  it  Swinburne, 
or  Pater  ? 

When  I  was  with  the  Johnsons  everything 
was  superficial ;  and,  as  regards  life,  every 
thing  was  brought  down  to  the  question  of 
right  and  wrong.  They  were  too  didactic ; 
art  should  never  be  didactic ;  and  what  is 
life  but  an  art  ?  Pater  has  said  that  so  well, 
somewhere.  With  the  Johnsons  I  am  afraid 
I  lost  many  opportunities ;  the  tone  was  gray 
and  cottony,  I  might  almost  say  woolly. 
But  now,  as  I  tell  you,  I  have  determined  to 


94  A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS. 

take  right  hold  for  myself;  to  look  right 
into  European  life,  and  judge  it  without 
Johnsonian  prejudices.  I  have  taken  up  rny 
residence  in  a  French  family,  in  a  real  Pari 
sian  house.  You  see  I  have  the  courage  of 
rny  opinions;  I  don't  shrink  from  carrying 
out  my  theory  that  the  great  thing  is  to  live. 
You  know  I  have  always  been  intensely 
interested  in  Balzac,  who  never  shrank  from 
the  reality,  and  whose  almost  lurid  pictures 
of  Parisian  life  have  often  haunted  me  in 
my  wanderings  through  the  old,  wicked- 
looking  streets  on  the  other  side  of  the  riv 
er.  I  am  only  sorry  that  my  new  friends — 
my  French  family — do  not  live  in  the  old 
city — au  cceur  du  vicux  Paris,  as  they  say  here. 
They  live  only  in  the  Boulevard  Haussinan, 
wThich  is  less  picturesque ;  but  in  spite  of 
this  they  have  a  great  deal  of  the  Balzac 
tone.  Madame  de  Maisonrouge  belongs  to 
one  of  the  oldest  and  proudest  families  in 
France ;  but  she  has  had  reverses,  which 
have  compelled  her  to  open  an  establishment 
in  which  a  limited  number  of  travellers,  who 
are  weary  of  the  beaten  track,  who  have  the 
sense  of  local  color — she  explains  it  herself, 
she  expresses  it  so  well — in  short,  to  open  a. 
sort  of  boarding-house.  I  don't  see  why  I 
should  not;  after  all,  use  that  expression,  for 


A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS.  95 

it  is  the  correlative  of  the  term  pension  ~bour- 
geoise,  employed  by  Balzac  iii  the  "Pere  Go- 
riot."  Do  you  remember  the  pension  bourgeoise 
of  Madame  Vauquer,  nee  De  Conflans?  But 
this  establishment  is  not  at  all  like  that: 
and,  indeed,  it  is  not, at  all  bourgeoise;  there 
is  something  distinguished,  something  aris 
tocratic,  about  it.  The  Pension  Vauquer  was 
dark,  brown,  sordid,  graisseuse;  but  this  is  in 
quite  a  different  tone,  with  high,  clear,  light 
ly-draped  windows,  tender,  subtle,  almost 
morbid  colors,  and  furniture  in  elegant,  stud 
ied,  reed-like  lines.  Madame  de  Maisourouge 
reminds  me  of  Madame  Hulot — do  you  re 
member  "la  belle  Madame  Hulot?" — in  "  Les 
Parents  Pauvres."  She  has  a  great  charm ;  a 
little  artificial,  a  little  fatigued,  with  a  little 
suggestion  of  hidden  things  in  her  life  ;  but 
I  have  always  been  sensitive  to  the  charui 
of  fatigue,  of  duplicity.  .  .  . 

I  am  rather  disappointed,  I  confess,  in  the 
society  I  find  here ;  it  is  not  so  local,  so  char 
acteristic,  as  I  could  have  desired.  Indeed, 
to  tell  the  truth,  it  is  not  local  at  all;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  is  cosmopolitan,  and 
there  is  a  great  advantage  in  that.  We  are 
French,  we  are  English,  we  are  American,  we 
are  German;  and  I  believe  there  are  some 
Russians  and  Hungarians  expected. 


96  A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS. 

I  am  much  interested  in  the  study  of  na 
tional  types  ;  in  comparing,  contrasting,  seiz 
ing  the  strong  points,  the  weak  points,  the 
point  of  view  of  each.  It  is  interesting  to 
shift  one's  point  of  view — to  enter  into 
strange,  exotic  ways  of  looking  at  life. 

The  American  types  here  are  not,  I  am 
sorry  to  say,  so  interesting  as  they  might  be ; 
and,  excepting  myself,  are  exclusively  femi 
nine.  We  are  thin,  my  dear  Harvard ;  we 
are  pale,  we  are  sharp.  There  is  something 
meagre  about  us;  our  line  is  wanting  in, 
roundness,  our  composition  in  richness.  We 
lack  temperament;  we  don't  know  how  to 
live :  nous  ne  savons  pas  vivre,  as  they  say 
here.  The  American  temperament  is  repre 
sented  (putting  myself  aside,  and  I  often 
think  that  my  temperament  is  not  at  all 
American)  by  a  young  girl  and  her  mother, 
and  another  young  girl  without  her  mother 
— without  her  mother  or  any  attendant  or 
appendage  whatever.  These  young  girls  are 
rather  curious  types;  they  have  a  certain 
interest,  they  have  a  certain  grace  ;  but  they 
are  disappointing  too.  They  don't  go  far; 
they  don't  keep  all  they  promise ;  they  don't 
satisfy  the  imagination.  They  are  cold,  slim, 
sexless;  the  physique  is  not  generous,  not 
abundant;  it  is  only  the  drapery — the  skirts 


A  BUNDLE  OF   LETTERS.  97 

and  furbelows  (that  is,  I  mean  in  the  young 
lady  who  has  her  mother) — that  is  abundant. 
They  are  very  different :  one  of  them  all  el 
egance,  all  expensiveness,  with  an  air  of  high 
fashion,  from  New  York;  the  other  a  plain, 
pure,  clear-eyed,  straight-waisted,  straight- 
stepping  maiden  from  the  heart  of  New  Eng 
land.  And  yet  they  are  very  much  alike, 
too  —  more  alike  than  they  would  care  to 
think  themselves;  for  they  eye  each  other 
with  cold,  mistrustful,  depreciating  looks. 
They  are  both  specimens  of  the  emancipated 
young  American  girl  —  practical,  positive, 
passionless,  subtle,  and  knowing,  as  you 
please,  either  too  much  or  too  little.  And 
yet,  as  I  say,  they  have  a  certain  stamp,  a 
certain  grace ;  I  like  to  talk  with  them,  to 
study  them. 

The  fair  New-Yorker  is  sometimes  very 
amusing ;  she  asks  me  if  every  one  in  Boston 
talks  like  me — if  every  one  is  as  "  intellect 
ual  "  as  your  poor  correspondent.  She  is  for 
ever  throwing  Boston  np  at  me;  I  can't  get 
rid  of  Boston.  The  other  one  rubs  it  into 
me  too,  but  in  a  different  way ;  she  seems  to 
feel  about  it  as  a  good  Mohammedan  feels 
towards  Mecca,  and  regards  it  as  a  kind  of 
focus  of  light  for  the  whole  human  race. 
Poor  little  Boston,  what  nonsense  is  talked 
7 


98  A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS. 

in  tliy  name !  But  this  New  England  maiden 
is,  in  her  way,  a  strange  type ;  she  is  travel 
ling  all  over  Europe  alone — "  to  see  it,"  she 
says,  "for  herself."  For  herself!  What  can 
that  stiff,  slim  self  of  hers  do  with  such 
sights,  such  visions!  She  looks  at  every 
thing,  goes  everywhere ;  passes  her  way, 
with  her  clear,  quiet  eyes  wide  open,  skirt 
ing  the  edge  of  obscene  abysses  without  sus 
pecting  them ;  pushing  through  brambles 
without  tearing  her  robe  ;  exciting,  without 
knowing  it,  the  most  injurious  suspicions ; 
and  always  holding  her  course,  passionless, 
stainless,  fearless,  charmless !  It  is  a  little 
figure  in  which,  after  all,  if  you  can  get  the 
right  point  of  view,  there  is  something  rather 
striking. 

By  way  of  contrast,  there  is  a  lovely  Eng 
lish  girl,  with  eyes  as  shy  as  violets,  and  a 
voice  as  sweet!  Sbe  has  a  sweet  Gainsbor 
ough  head,  and  a  great  Gainsborough  hat, 
with  a  mighty  plume  in  front  of  it,  which 
makes  a  shadow  over  her  quiet  English  eyes. 
Then  she  has  a  sage-green  robe,  "mystic, 
wonderful,"  all  embroidered  with  subtle  de 
vices,  and  flowers  and  birds  of  tender  tint ; 
very  straight  and  tight  in  front,  and  adorned 
behind,  along  the  spine,  with  large,  strange, 
iridescent  buttons.  The  revival  of  taste,  of 


A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS.  99 

the  sense  of  beauty,  in  England  interests  me 
deeply.  What  is  there  in  a  simple  row  of 
spinal  buttons  to  make  one  dream — to  don- 
ner  a  rever,  as  they  say  here  ?  I  think  that 
a  great  aesthetic  renascence  is  at  hand,  and 
that  a  great  light  will  be  kindled  in  England 
for  all  the  world  to  see.  There  are  spirits 
there  that  I  should  like  to  commune  with  ; 
I  think  they  would  understand  me. 

This  gracious  English  maiden,  with  her 
clinging  robes,  her  amulets  and  girdles,  with 
something  quaint  and  angular  in  her  step, 
her  carriage — something  mediaeval  and  Goth 
ic  in  the  details  of  her  person  and  dress — 
this  lovely  Evelyn  Vane  (isn't  it  a  beautiful 
name?)  is  deeply,  delightfully  picturesque. 
She  is  much  a  woman — elle  est  bien  femme,  as 
they  say  here ;  simpler,  softer,  rounder,  rich 
er,  than  the  young  girls  I  spoke  of  just  now. 
Not  much  talk — a  great,  sweet  silence.  Then 
the  violet  eye — the  very  eye  itself  seems  to 
blush ;  the  great  shadowy  hat,  making  the 
brow  so  quiet ;  the  strange,  clinging,  clutch 
ing,  pictured  raiment !  As  I  say,  it  is  a  very 
gracious,  tender  type.  She  has  her  brother 
with  her,  who  is  a  beautiful,  fair-haired, 
gray-eyed  young  Englishman.  He  is  purely 
objective ;  and  he,  too,  is  very  plastic. 


100  A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS. 


Y. 

FROM  MIRANDA  HOPE  TO  HER  MOTHER. 
September  26. 

You  rnust  not  be  frightened  at  not  hear 
ing  from  me  oftener;  it  is  not  because  I  am 
in  any  trouble,  but  because  I  am  getting  011 
so  well.  If  I  were  in  any  trouble,  I  don't 
think  I  should  write  to  you;  I  should  just 
keep  quiet  and  see  it  through  myself.  But 
that  is  not  the  case  at  present ;  and  if  I 
don't  write  to  you,  it  is  because  I  am  so 
deeply  interested  over  here  that  I  don't 
seem  to  find  time.  It  was  a  real  providence 
that  brought  me  to  this  house,  where,  in 
spite  of  all  obstacles,  I  am  able  to  do  much 
good  work.  I  wonder  how  I  find  the  time 
for  all  I  do ;  but  when  I  think  that  I  have 
only  got  a  year  in  Europe,  I  feel  as  if  I 
wouldn't  sacrifice  a  single  hour. 

The  obstacles  I  refer  to  are  the  disadvan 
tages  I  have  in  learning  French,  there  being 
so  many  persons  around  me  speaking  Eng 
lish,  and  that,  as  you  may  say,  in  the  very 
bosom  of  a  French  family.  It  seems  as  if 


A  DUNDEE  OF  LETTERS.  -101 

you  heard  Englisli  everywhere ;  but  I  cer 
tainly  didn't  expect  to  find  it  in  a  place  like 
this.  I  am  not  discouraged,  however,  and  I 
talk  French  all  I  can,  even  with  the  other 
English  boarders.  Then  I  have  a  lesson 
every  day  from  Miss  Maisonrouge  (the  eld 
er  daughter  of  the  lady  of  the  house),  and 
French  conversation  every  evening  in  the 
salon  from  eight  to  eleven,  with  Madame 
herself,  and  some  friends  of  hers  that  often 
come  in.  Her  cousin,  Mr.  Verdier,  a  young 
French  gentleman,  is,  fortunately,  staying 
with  her,  and  I  make  a  point  of  talking 
with  him  as  much  as  possible.  I  have  extra 
private  lessons  from  him,  and  I  often  go  out 
to  walk  with  him.  Some  night,  soon,  he  is 
to  accompany  me  to  the  opera.  We  have 
also  a  most  interesting  plan  of  visiting  all 
the  galleries  in  Paris  together.  Like  most 
of  the  French,  he  converses  with  great  flu 
ency,  and  I  feel  as  if  I  should  really  gain 
from  him.  He  is  remarkably  handsome, 
and  extremely  polite — paying  a  great  many 
compliments,  which  I  am  afraid  are  not  al- 
wrays  sincere.  When  I  return  to  Bangor,  I 
will  tell  you  some  of  the  things  he  has  said 
to  me.  I  think  you  will  consider  them  ex 
tremely  curious  and  very  beautiful  in  their 
way. 


102 


A  .BUNDLE  pr  LETTERS. 


The  conversation  in  the  parlor  (from  eight 
to  eleven)  is  often  remarkably  brilliant,  and 
I  often  wish  that  you,  or  some  of  the  Ban 
gor  folks,  conld  be  there  to  enjoy  it.  Even 
though  you  couldn't  understand  it,  I  think 
you  would  like  to  hear  the  way  they  go  on, 
they  seem  to  express  so  much.  I  sometimes 
think  that  at  Bangor  they  don't  express 
enough  (but  it  seems  as  if,  over  here,  there 
was  less  to  express).  It  seems  as  if,  at  Ban 
gor,  there  were  things  that  folks  never  tried 
to  say ;  but  here,  I  have  learned  from  study 
ing  French  that  you  have  no  idea  what  you 
can  say  before  you  try.  At  Bangor  they 
seem  to  give  it  up  beforehand ;  they  don't 
make  any  effort.  (I  don't  say  this,  in  the 
least,  for  William  Platt,  in  particular.') 

I  am  sure  I  don't  know  what  they  will 
think  of  me  when  I  get  back.  It  seems  as 
if,  over  here,  I  had  learned  to  come  out  with 
everything.  I  suppose  they  will  think  I  am 
not  sincere ;  but  isn't  it  more  sincere  to  come 
out  with  things  than  to  conceal  them  ?  I 
have  become  very  good  friends  with  every 
one  in  the  house — that  is  (you  see,  I  am  sin 
cere),  with  almost  every  one.  It  is  the  most 
interesting  circle  I  ever  was  in.  There's  a 
girl  here,  an  American,  that  I  don't  like  so 
much  as  the  rest ;  hut  that  is  only  because 


A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS.  103 

she  won't  let  me.  I  should  like  to  like  her, 
ever  so  much,  because  she  is  most  lovely 
and  most  attractive;  but  she  doesn't  seem 
to  want  to  know  me  or  to  like  me.  She 
comes  from  New  York,  and  she  is  remarka 
bly  pretty,  with  beautiful  eyes  and  the  most 
delicate  features.  She  is  also  remarkably 
elegant  —  in  this  respect  would  bear  com 
parison  with  any  one  I  have  seen  over  here. 
But  it  seems  as  if  she  did  not  want  to  rec 
ognize  me  or  associate  with  me — as  if  she 
wanted  to  make  a  difference  between  us.  It 
is  like  people  they  call  "  haughty  "  in  books. 
I  have  never -seen  any  one  like  that  before — 
any  one  that  wanted  to  make  a  difference ; 
and  at  first  I  was  right  down  interested,  she 
seemed  to  me  so  like  a  proud  young  lady  in 
a  novel.  I  kept  saying  to  myself  all  day, 
"  haughty,  haughty,"  and  I  wished  she  would 
not  keep  on  so.  But  she  did  keep  on ;  she 
kept  on  too  long ;  and  then  I  began  to  feel 
hurt.  I  couldn't  think  what  I  had  done, 
and  I  can't  think  yet.  It's  as  if  she  had  got 
some  idea  about  me,  or  had  heard  some  one 
say  something.  If  some  girls  should  behave 
like  that,  I  shouldn't  make  any  account  of 
it ;  but  this  one  is  so  refined,  and  looks  as 
if  she  might  be  so  interesting,  if  I  once  got 
to  know  her,  that  I  think  about  it  a  good 


104  A   BUNDLE   OF  LETTERS. 

deal.  I  am  bound  to  find  out  what  her  rea 
son  is,  for  of  course  she  has  got  some  rea 
son  ;  I  am  right  down  curious  to  know. 

I  went  up  to  her  to  ask  her,  the  day  before 
yesterday ;  I  thought  that  was  the  best  way. 
I  told  her  I  wanted  to  know  her  better,  and 
would  like  to  come  and  see  her  in  her  room, 
(they  tell  me  she  has  got  a  lovely  room), 
and  that  if  she  had  heard  anything  against 
me,  perhaps  she  would  tell  me  when  I  came. 
But  she  was  more  distant  than  ever,  and  she 
just  turned  it  off — said  that  she  had  never 
heard  me  mentioned,  and  that  her  room  was 
too  small  to  receive  visitors.  I  suppose  she 
spoke  the  truth ;  but  I  am  sure  she  has  got 
some  reason,  all  the  same.  She  has  got  some 
idea,  and  I  am  bound  to  find  out  before  I  go, 
if  I  have  to  ask  everybody  in  the  house.  I 
am  right  down,  curious.  I  wonder  if  she 
doesn't  think  me  refined,  or  if  she  had  ever 
heard  anything  against  Bangor  ?  I  can't 
think  it  is  that.  Don't  you  remember  when 
Clara  Barnard  went  to  visit  in  New  York, 
three  years  ago,  how  much  attention  she  re 
ceived  ?  And  you  know  Clara  is  Bangor  to 
the  soles  of  her  shoes.  Ask  William  Platt — 
so  long  as  he  isn't  a  native — if  he  doesn't 
consider  Clara  Barnard  refined. 

Apropos  (as  they  say  here)  of  refinement, 


A  BUNDLE   OF  LETTERS.  105 

there  is  another  American  in  the  house — a 
gentleman  from  Boston — who  is  just  crowd 
ed  with  it.  His  name  is  Mr.  Louis  Leverett 
(such  a  beautiful  name,  I  think),  and  he  is 
about  thirty  years  old.  He  is  rather  small, 
and  he  looks  pretty  sick;  he  suffers  from 
some  affection  of  the  liver.  But  his  conver 
sation  is  remarkably  interesting,  and  I  de 
light  to  listen  to  him,  he  has  such  beautiful 
ideas.  I  feel  as  if  it  were  hardly  right,  not 
being  in  French ;  but,  fortunately,  he  uses  a 
great  many  French  expressions.  It's  in  a 
different  style  from  the  conversation  of  Mr. 
Verdier ;  not  so  complimentary,  but  more 
intellectual.  He  is  intensely  fond  of  pict 
ures,  and  has  given  me  a  great  many  ideas 
about  them  which  I  should  never  have  gain 
ed  without  him  ;  I  shouldn't  have  known 
•where  to  look  for  such  ideas.  He  thinks 
everything  of  pictures.  He  thinks  we  don't 
make  near  enough  of  them.  They  seem  to 
make  a  good  deal  of  them  here ;  but  I 
couldn't  help  telling  him  the  other  day 
that  in  Baugor  I  really  don't  think  we  do. 

If  I  had  any  money  to  spend,  I  would  buy 
some  and  take  them  back  to  hang  up.  Mr. 
Leverett  says  it  would  do  them  good— -not 
the  pictures,  but  the  Bangor  folks.  He 
thinks  everything  of  the  French,  too,  and 


106  A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS. 

says  we  don't  make  nearly  enough  of  them. 
I  couldn't  help  telling  him,  the  other  day, 
that,  at  any  rate,  they  make  enough  of  them 
selves.  But  it  is  very  interesting  to  hear 
him  go  on  about  the  French ;  and  it  is  so 
much  gain  to  me,  so  long  as  that  is  what  I 
came  for.  I  talk  to  him  as  much  as  I  dare 
about  Boston,  but  I  do  feel  as  if  this  were 
right  down  wrong — a  stolen  pleasure. 

I  can  get  all  the  Boston  culture  I  want 
when  I  go  back,  if  I  carry  out  my  plan,  my 
happy  vision,  of  going  there  to  reside.  I 
ought  to  direct  all  my  efforts  to  European 
culture  now,  and  keep  Boston  to  finish  off. 
But  it  seems  as  if  I  couldn't  help  taking  a 
peep  now  and  then,  in  advance,  with  a  Bos- 
tonian.  I  don't  know  when  I  may  meet  one 
again  ;  but  if  there  are  many  others  like  Mr. 
Leverett  there,  I  shall  be  certain  not  to  want 
when  I  carry  out  my  dream.  He  is  jnst  as 
full  of  culture  as  he  can  live.  But  it  seems 
strange  how  many  different  sorts  there  are. 

There  are  two  of  the  English  who,  I  sup 
pose,  are  very  cultivated  too ;  but  it  doesn't 
seem  as  if  I  could  enter  into  theirs  so  easily, 
though  I  try  all  I  can.  I  do  love  their  way 
of  speaking  ;  and  sometimes  I  feel  almost  as 
if  it  would  be  right  to  give  up  trying  to  learn 
French,  and  just  try  to  learn  to  speak  our 


A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS.  107 

own  tongue  as  these  English  speak  it.  It 
isn't  the  things  they  say  so  much — though 
these  are  often  rather  curious — but  it  is  in 
the  way  they  pronounce  and  the  sweetness 
of  their  voice.  It  seems  as  if  they  must  try 
a  good  deal  to  talk  like  that ;  but  these  Eng 
lish  that  are  here  don't  seem  to  try  at  all, 
either  to  speak  or  do  anything  else.  They 
are  a  young  lady  and  her  brother.  I  be 
lieve  they  belong  to  some  noble  family.  I 
have  had  a  good  deal  of  intercourse  with 
them,  because  I  have  felt  more  free  to  talk 
to  them  than  to  the  Americans,  on  account 
of  the  language.  It  seems  as  if,  in  talking 
with  them,  I  was  almost  learning  a  new  one. 
I  never  supposed,  when  I  left  Bangor,  that 
I  was  coming  to  Europe  to  learn  English! 
If  I  do  learn  it,  I  don't  think  you  will  under 
stand  me  when  I  get  back,  and  I  don't  think 
you'll  like  it  much.  I  should  be  a  good  deal 
criticised  if  I  spoke  like  that  at  Baugor. 
However,  I  verily  believe  Baugor  is  the  most 
critical  place  on  earth  ;  I  have  seen  nothing 
like  it  over  here.  Tell  them  all  that  I  have 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  they  are  a  great 
deal  too  fastidious.  But  I  was  speaking  about 
this  English  young  lady  and  her  brother.  I 
wish  I  could  put  them  before  you.  She  is 
lovely  to  look  at,  she  seems  so  modest  and 


108  A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS. 

retiring.  In  spite  of  this,  however,  she  dress 
es  in  a  way  that  attracts  great  attention,  as 
I  couldn't  help  noticing  when,  one  day,  I 
went  out  to  walk  with  her.  She  was  ever 
so  much  looked  at ;  but  she  didn't  seem  to 
notice  it,  until  at  last  I  couldn't  help  calling 
attention  to  it.  Mr.  Leverett  thinks  every 
thing  of  it ;  he  calls  it  the  "  costume  of  the 
future."  I  should  call  it  rather  the  costume 
of  the  past  —  you  know  the  English  have 
such  an  attachment  to  the  past.  I  said  this 
the  other  day  to  Madame  de  Maisourouge — 
that  Miss  Vane  dressed  in  the  costume  of  the 
past.  "  De  Van  passe,  vous  voulez  dire  ?"  said 
Madame,  with  her  little  French  laugh  (you 
can  get  William  Platt  to  translate  this — he 
used  to  tell  me  he  knew  so  much  French). 

You  kuow  I  told  you,  in  writing  some  time 
ago,  that  I  had  tried  to  get  some  insight  into 
the  position  of  woman  in  England,  and,  being 
here  with  Miss  Vane,  it  has  seemed  to  me  to 
be  a  good  opportunity  to  get  a  little  more. 
I  have  asked  her  a  great  deal  about  it ;  but 
she  doesn't  seem  able  to  give  me  much  in 
formation.  The  first  time  I  asked  her,  she 
told  me  the  position  of  a  lady  depended  upon 
the  rank  of  her  father,  her  eldest  brother, 
her  husband,  etc.  She  told  mo  her  own  po 
sition  was  very  good,  because  her  father  was 


A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS.  109 

some  relation  —  I  forget  what  —  to  a  lord. 
She  thinks  everything  of  this ;  and  that 
proves  to  me  that  the  position  of  woman  in 
her  country  cannot  be  satisfactory;  because, 
if  it  were,  it  wouldn't  depend  upon  that  of 
your  relations,  even  your  nearest.  I  don't 
know  much  about  lords,  and  it  does  try  my 
patience  (though  she  is  just  as  sweet  as  she 
can  live)  to  hear  her  talk  as  if  it  were  a  mat 
ter  of  course  that  I  should. 

I  feel  as  if  it  were  right  to  ask  her  as  often 
as  I  can  if  she  doesn't  consider  every  one 
equal ;  but  she  always  says  she  doesn't,  and 
she  confesses  that  she  doesn't  think  she  is 
equal  to  "  Lady  Something-or-other,"  who  is 
the  wife  of  that  relation  of  her  father.  I  try 
and  persuade  her  all  I  can  that  she  is ;  but 
it  seems  as  if  she  didn't  want  to  be  persuad 
ed  ;  and  when  I  ask  her  if  Lady  So-and-so  is 
of  the  same  opinion  (that  Miss  Vane  isn't 
her  equal),  she  looks  so  soft  and  pretty  with 
her  eyes,  and  says, "  Of  course  she  is !"  When 
I  tell  her  that  this  is  right  down  bad  for  Lady 
So-and-so,  it  seems  as  if  she  wouldn't  believe 
me,  and  the  only  answer  she  will  make  is 
that  Lady  So-and-so  is  "  extremely  njce."  I 
don't  believe  she  is  nice  at  all ;  if  she  were 
nice,  she  wouldn't  have  such  ideas  as  that. 

I  tell  Miss  Vane  that  at  Baugor  we  think 


110  A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS. 

such  ideas  vulgar ;  but  then  she  looks  as 
tliongli  she  had  never  heard  of  Bangor.  I 
often  want  to  shake  her,  though  she  is  so 
sweet.  If  she  isn't  angry  with  the  people 
who  make  her  feel  that  way,  I  am  angry  for 
her.  I  am  angry  with  her  brother,  too,  for 
she  is  evidently  very  much  afraid  of  him, 
and  this  gives  me  some  further  insight  into 
the  subject.  She  thinks  everything  of  her 
brother,  and  thinks  it  natural  that  she 
should  be  afraid  of  him,  not  only  physically 
(for  this  is  natural,  as  he  is  enormously  tall 
and  strong,  and  has  very  big  fists),  but  mor 
ally  and  intellectually.  She  seems  unable, 
however,  to  take  in  any  argument,  and  she 
makes  me  realize — what  I  have  often  heard 
— that  if  you  are  timid  nothing  will  reason 
you  out  of  it. 

Mr.  Vane,  also  (the  brother),  seems  to  have 
the  same  prejudices;  and  when  I  tell  him, 
as  I  often  think  it  right  to  do,  that  his  sister 
is  not  his  subordinate,  even  if  she  does  think 
so,  but  his  equal,  and,  perhaps,  in  some  re 
spects  his  superior ;  and  that  if  my  brother, 
in  Bangor,  were  to  treat  me  as  he  treats  this 
poor  young  girl,  who  has  not  spirit  enough 
to  see  the  question  in  its  trne  light,  there 
would  be  an  indignation  meeting  of  the 
citizens  to  protest  against  such  an  outrage 


A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS.  Ill 

to  the  sanctity  of  womanhood  —  when  I 
tell  him  all  this,  at  breakfast  or  dinner,  he 
bursts  out  laughing  so  loud  that  all  the 
plates  clatter  011  the  table. 

But  at  such  a  time  as  this  there  is  always 
one  person  who  seems  interested  in  what  I 
say — a  German  gentleman,  a  professor,  who 
sits  next  to  me  at  dinner,  and  whom  I  must 
tell  you  more  about  another  time.  He  is 
very  learned,  and  has  a  great  desire  for  in 
formation.  He  appreciates  a  great  many  of 
rny  remarks,  and  after  dinner,  in  the  salon, 
he  often  comes  to  me  to  ask  me  questions 
about  them.  I  have  to  think  a  little,  some 
times,  to  know  what  I  did  say,  or  what  I  do 
think.  He  takes  you  right  up  where  you 
left  off,  and  he  is  almost  as  fond  of  discuss 
ing  things  as  William  Platt  is.  He  is  splen 
didly  educated  in  the  German  style,  and  he 
told  me  the  other  day  that  he  was  an  "  in 
tellectual  broom."  Well,  if  he  is,  he  sweeps 
clean ;  I  told  him  that.  After  he  has  been 
talking  to  rne,  I  feel  as  if  I  hadn't  got  a  speck 
of  dust  left  in  my  mind  anywhere.  It's  a 
most  delightful  feeling.  He  says  he's  an. 
observer ;  and  I  am  sure  there  is  plenty  over 
here  to  observe.  But  I  have  told  you  enough 
for  to-day.  I  don't  know  how  much  longer 
I  shall  stay  here  j  I  am  getting  on  so  fast 


112  A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS. 

that  it  sometimes  seems  as  if  I  shouldn't 
need  all  the  time  I  have  laid  out.  I  sup 
pose  your  cold  weather  has  promptly  begun, 
as  usual;  it  sometimes  makes  me  envy  you. 
The  fall  weather  here  is  very  dull  and  damp, 
and  I  feel  very  much  as  if  I  should  like  to  be 
braced  up. 


VI. 

FROM  Miss  EVELYN  VANE,  IN  PARIS,  TO 

THE  LADY  AUGUSTA  FLEMING, 

AT  BRIGHTON. 

PARIS,  September  30. 
DEAR  LADY  AUGUSTA, — 

I  am  afraid  I  shall  not  be  able  to  come  to 
you  on  January  7,  as  you  kindly  proposed 
at  Homburg.  I  am  so  very,  very  sorry ;  it  is 
a  great  disappointment  to  me.  But  I  have 
just  heard  that  it  has  been  settled  that 
mamma  and  the  children  are  coming  abroad 
for  a  part  of  the  winter,  and  mamma  wishes 
me  to  go  with  them  to  Hyeres,  where  Geor- 
gina  has  been  ordered  for  her  lungs.  She 
has  not  been  at  all  well  these  three  months, 
and  now  that  the  damp  weather  has  begun, 
she  is  very  poorly  indeed ;  so  that  last  week 


A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS.  113 

papa  decided  to  have  a  consultation,  and  he 
and  mamma  went  with  her  up  to  town  and 
saw  some  three  or  four  doctors.  They  all 
of  them  ordered  the  South  of  France,  hut 
they  didn't  agree  ahout  the  place ;  so  that 
mamma  herself  decided  for  Hyeres,  hecause 
it  is  the  most  economical.  I  helieve  it  is 
very  dull,  hut  I  hope  it  will  do  Georgia  a 
good.  I  am  afraid,  however,  that  nothing 
will  do  her  good  until  she  consents  to  take 
more  care  of  herself;  I  am  afraid  she  is  very 
wild  and  wilful,  and  mamma  tells  me  that 
all  this  month  it  has  taken  papa's  positive 
orders  to  make  her  stop  indoors. 

She  is  very  cross  (mamma  writes  me) 
ahout  coming  ahroad,  and  doesn't  seem  at 
all  to  mind  the  expense  that  papa  has  heen 
put  to — talks  very  ill-naturedly  about  los 
ing  the  hunting,  etc.  She  expected  to  he- 
gin  to  hunt  in  December,  and  wants  to 
know  whether  anybody  keeps  any  hounds 
at  Hyeres.  Fancy  a  girl  wanting  to  follow 
the  hounds  when  her  lungs  are  so  bad !  But 
I  dare  say  that  when  she  gets  there  she  will 
be  glad  enough  to  keep  quiet,  as  they  say 
that  the  heat  is  intense.  It  may  cure  Geor- 
giua,  but  I  am  sure  it  will  make  the  rest  of 
us  very  ill. 

Mamma,  however,  is  only  going  to  bring 
8 


114  A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS. 

Mary  and  Gus  and  Fred  and  Adelaide  abroad 
•with  her:  the  others  will  remain  at  Kings- 
cote  until  February  (about  the  3d),  when 
they  will  go  to  Eastbourne  for  a  month  with 
Miss  Philpotts,  the  new  governess,  who  has 
turned  out  such  a,  very  nice  person.  She  is 
going  to  take  Miss  Travers,  who  has  been 
with  us  so  long,  but  who  is  only  qualified 
for  the  younger  children,  to  Hyeres,  and  I 
believe  some  of  the  Kingscote  servants.  She 
has  perfect  confidence  in  Miss  P.;  it  is  only 
a  pity  she  has  such  an  odd  name.  Mamma 
thought  of  asking  her  if  she  would  mind 
taking  another  when  she  came;  but  papa 
thought  she  might  object.  Lady  Battle- 
down  makes  all  her  governesses  take  the 
same  name;  she  gives  £5  more  a  year  for 
the  purpose.  I  forget  what  it  is  she  calls 
them;  I  think  it's  Thompson  (which  to  me 
always  suggests  a  lady's  maid).  Govern 
esses  shouldn't  have  too  pretty  a  name ; 
they  shouldn't  have  a  nicer  name  than  the 
family. 

I  suppose  you  heard  from  the  Desmonds 
that  I  did  not  go  back  to  England  with 
them.  When  it  began  to  be  talked  about  that 
Georgina  should  bo  taken  abroad,  mamma 
wrote  to  me  that  I  had  better  stop  in  Paris 
for  a  month  with  Harold;  so  that  she  could 


A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS.  115 

pick  me  up  on  her  way  to  Hyeres.  It  saves 
the  expense  of  my  journey  to  Kingscote  and 
back,  and  gives  me  the  opportunity  to  "  fin 
ish  "  a  little,  in  French. 

You  know  Harold  came  here  six  weeks 
ago,  to  get  up  his  French  for  those  dreadful 
examinations  that  he  has  to  pass  so  soon. 
He  came  to  live  with  some  French  people 
that  take  in  young  men  (and  others)  for  this 
purpose  ;  it's  a  kind  of  coaching-place,  only 
kept  by  women.  Mamma  had  heard  it  was 
very  nice ;  so  she  wrote  to  me  that  I  was  to 
come  and  stop  here  with  Harold.  The  Des 
monds  brought  me  and  made  the  arrange 
ment  or  the  bargain,  or  whatever  yon  call 
it.  Poor  Harold  was  naturally  not  at  all 
pleased ;  but  he  has  been  very  kind,  and 
has  treated  me  like  an  angel.  He  is  get 
ting  on  beautifully  with  his  French  ;  for 
though  I  don't  think  the  place  is  so  good  as 
papa  supposed,  yet  Harold  is  so  immensely 
clever  that  he  can  scarcely  help  learning. 
I  am  afraid  I  learn  much  less ;  but,  fortu 
nately,  I  have  not  to  pass  an  examination, 
except  if  mamma  takes  it  into  her  head  to 
examine  me.  But  she  will  have  so  much  to 
think  of  with  Georgina  that  I  hope  this 
won't  occur  to  her.  If  it  does,  I  shall  be,  as 
Harold  says,  in  a  dreadful  funk. 


116  A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS. 

This  is  not  such  a  nice  place  for  a  girl  as 
for  a  young  man,  and  the  Desmonds  thought 
it  exceedingly  odd  that  mamma  should  wish 
me  to  come  here.  As  Mrs.  Desmond  said, 
it  is  because  she  is  so  very  unconventional. 
But,  you  know,  Paris  is  so  very  amusing !  ami 
if  only  Harold  remains  good-natured  about 
it,  I  shall  be  content  to  wait  for  the  cara 
van  (that's  what  he  calls  mamma  and  the 
children).  The  person  who  keeps  the  estab 
lishment,  or  whatever  they  call  it,  is  rather 
odd,  and  exceedingly  foreign  ;  but  she  is  won 
derfully  civil,  and  is  perpetually  sending  to 
my  door  to  see  if  I  want  anything.  The 
servants  are  not  at  all  like  English  servants, 
and  come  bursting  in,  the  footman  (they  have 
only  one)  and  the  maids  alike,  at  all  sorts  of 
hours,  in  the  most  sudden  ivay.  Then  when 
one  rings,  it  is  half  an  hour  before  they  come. 
All  this  is  very  uncomfortable,  and  I  dare 
say  it  will  be  worse  at  Hyeres.  There,  how 
ever,  fortunately,  we  shall  have  our  own 
people. 

There  are  some  very  odd  Americans  here, 
who  keep  throwing  Harold  into  fits  of  laugh 
ter.  One  is  a  dreadful  little  man,  who  is  al 
ways  sitting  over  the  fire  and  talking  about 
the  color  of  the  sky.  I  don't  believe  he  ever 
saw  the  sky  except  through  the  window- 


A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS.  117 

pane.  The  other  day  he  took  hold  of  my 
frock  (that  green  one  you  thought  so  nice  at 
Homburg)  and  told  me  that  it  reminded  him. 
of  the  texture  of  the  Devonshire  turf.  And 
then  he  talked  for  half  an  hour  about  the 
Devonshire  turf,  which  I  thought  such  a 
very  extraordinary  subject.  Harold  says  he 
is  mad.  It  is  very  strange  to  be  living  in 
this  way  with  people  one  doesn't  know — I 
mean  that  one  doesn't  know  as  one  knows 
them  in  England. 

The  other  Americans  (besides  the  mad  gen 
tleman)  are  two  girls,  about  my  own  age, 
one  of  whom  is  rather  nice.  She  has  a  moth 
er  ;  but  the  mother  is  always  sitting  in  her 
bedroom,  which  seems  so  very  odd.  I  should 
like  mamma  to  ask  them  to  Kingscote,  but  I 
am  afraid  mamma  wouldn't  like  the  moth 
er,  who  is  rather  vulgar.  The  other  girl  is 
rather  vulgar,  too,  and  is  travelling  about 
quite  alone.  I  think  she  is  a  kind  of  school 
mistress;  but  the  other  girl  (I  mean  the 
nicer  one,  with  the  mother)  tells  me  she  is 
more  respectable  than  she  seems.  She  has, 
however,  the  most  extraordinary  opinions  — 
wishes  to  do  away  with  the  aristocracy, 
thinks  it  wrong  that  Arthur  should  have 
Kingscote  when  papa  dies,  etc.  I  don't  see 
what  it  signifies  to  her  that  poor  Arthur 


118  A  BUNDLE   OF  LETTERS. 

should  come  into  the  property,  which  will  be 
so  delightful — except  for  papa  dying.  But 
Harold  says  she  is  mad.  He  chaffs  her  tre 
mendously  about  her  radicalism,  and  he  is  so 
immensely  clever  that  she  can't  answer  him, 
though  she  is  rather  clever  too. 

There  is  also  a  Frenchman,  a  nephew,  or 
cousin,  or  something,  of  the  person  of  the 
house,  who  is  extremely  nasty ;  and  a  Ger 
man  professor,  or  doctor,  who  eats  with  a 
knife,  and  is  a  great  bore.  I  am  so  very  sorry 
about  giving  up  my  visit;  I  am  afraid  you 
will  never  ask  me  again. 


VII. 

FROM  LEON  VERDI,  IN  PARIS,  TO  PROSPER 
GOBAIN,  AT  LILLE. 

September  28. 
MY  DEAR  PROSPER, — 

It  is  a  long  time  since  I  have  given  you  of 
my  news,  and  I  don't  know  what  puts  ifc  into 
niy  head  to-night  to  recall  myself  to  your 
affectionate  memory.  I  suppose  it  is  that 
when  we  are  happy  the  mind  reverts  in 
stinctively  to  those  with  whom  formerly  we 
shared  our  exultations  and  depressions,  and 


A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS.  119 

je  fen  ai  trop  dit,  dans  le  ~bon  temps j  mon  gros 
Prosper,  and  you  always  listened  to  me  too  im- 
perturbably,  with  your  pipe  in  your  mouth, 
your  waistcoat  unbuttoned,  for  me  not  to 
feel  that  I  can  count  upon  your  sympathy 
to-day.  Nous  en  sommes  nous  flanquecs  des 
confidences — in  those  happy  days  when  my 
first  thought  in  seeing  an  adventure  jpoiwdre 
a  Vhorizon  was  of  the  pleasure  I  should  have 
in  relating  it  to  the  great  Prosper.  As  I  tell 
thee,  I  am  happy ;  decidedly,  I  am  happy, 
and  from  this  affirmation  I  fancy  you  can 
construct  the  rest.  Shall  I  help  thee  a  lit 
tle  ?  Take  three  adorahle  girls  .  .  .  three, 
my  good  Prosper  —  the  mystic  number  — 
neither  more  nor  less.  Take  them  and  place 
thy  insatiable  little  L6on  in  the  midst  of 
them!  Is  the  situation  sufficiently  indicat 
ed,  and  do  you  apprehend  the  motives  of  my 
felicity  ? 

You  expected,  perhaps,  I  was  going  to  tell 
you  that  I  had  made  my  fortune,  or  that  the 
Uncle  Blondeau  had  at  last  decided  to  re 
turn  into  the  breast  of  nature,  after  having 
constituted  me  his  universal  legatee.  But 
I  needn't  remind  you  that  women  are  al 
ways  for  something  in  the  happiness  of  him 
who  writes  to  thee  —  for  something  in  his 
happiness,  and  for  a  good  deal  more  in  his 


120  A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS. 

misery.  But  don't  let  me  talk  of  misery 
now ;  time  enough  when  it  comes.  Ces  demoi 
selles  have  gone  to  join  the  serried  ranks  of 
their  amiable  predecessors.  Excuse  me — I 
comprehend  your  impatience.  I  will  tell  you 
of  whom  ces  demoiselles  consist. 

You  have  heard  me  speak  of  my  cousine  do 
Maisonrouge,  that  grande  belle  femme,  who,  af 
ter  having  married,  en  secondes  twees — there 
had  been,  to  tell  the  truth,  some  irregularity 
about  her  first  union  —  a  venerable  relic  of 
the  old  noblesse  of  Poitou,  was  left,  by  the 
death  of  ber  husband,  complicated  by  the  in 
dulgence  of  expensive  tastes  on  an  income 
of  17,000  francs,  on  the  pavement  of  Paris, 
with  two  little  demons  of  daughters  to  bring 
up  in  the  path  of  virtue.  She  managed  to 
bring  them  up  ;  my  little  cousins  are  rigidly 
virtuous.  If  you  ask  me  how  she  managed 
it,  I  can't  tell  you :  it's  no  business  of  mine, 
and,  a  fortiori,  none  of  yours.  She  is  now 
fifty  years  old  (she  confesses  to  thirty-sev 
en),  and  her  daughters,  whom  she  has  never 
been  able  to  marry,  are  respectively  twen 
ty-seven  and  twenty- three  (they  confess  to 
twenty-two  and  eighteen).  Three  years  ago 
she  had  the  thrice-blessed  idea  of  opening  a 
sort  of  pension  for  the  entertainment  and  in 
struction  of  the  blundering  barbarians  who 


A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS.  121 

come  to  Paris  in  the  hope  of  picking  np  a  few 
stray  particles  of  the  language  of  Voltaire 
— or  of  Zola.  The  idea  lui  a  porte  ~bonheur; 
the  shop  does  a  very  good  business.  Until 
within  a  few  months  ago  it  was  carried  011 
by  my  cousins  alone;  but  lately  the  need  of 
a  few  extensions  and  embellishments  has 
caused  itself  to  be  felt.  My  cousin  has  un 
dertaken  them,  regardless  of  expense ;  she 
has  asked  me  to  come  and  stay  with  her — 
board  and  lodging  gratis — and  keep  an  eye 
on  the  grammatical  irregularities  of  her  jpew- 
sionnaircs.  I  am  the  extension,  my  good 
Prosper ;  I  am  the  embellishment !  I  live  for 
nothing,  and  I  straighten  up  the  accent  of 
the  prettiest  English  lips.  The  English  lips 
are  not  all  pretty,  Heaven  knows,  but  enough 
of  them  are  so  to  make  it  a  gaining  bargain 
for  me. 

Just  now,  as  I  told  yon,  I  am  in  daily  con 
versation  with  three  separate  pairs.  The 
owner  of  one  of  them  has  private  lessons ; 
she  pays  extra.  My  cousin  doesn't  give  me 
a  sou  of  the  money ;  but  I  make  bold,  never 
theless,  to  say  that  my  trouble  is  remunerat 
ed.  But  I  am  well,  very  well,  with  the  pro 
prietors  of  the  other  two  pairs.  One  of  them 
is  a  little  Anglaise  of  about  twenty — a  little 
figure  de  keepsake;  the  most  adorable  miss 


122  A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS. 

that  you  ever,  or  at  least  that  I  ever,  beheld. 
She  is  decorated  all  over  with  beads  and 
bracelets  and  embroidered  dandelions;  bnt 
her  principal  decoration  consists  of  the  soft 
est  little  gray  eyes  in  the  world,  which  rest 
upon  you  with  a  profundity  of  confidence — 
a  confidence  that  I  really  felt  some  compunc 
tion  in.  betraying.  She  has  a  tint  as  white 
as  this  sheet  of  paper,  except  just  in  the  mid 
dle  of  each  cheek,  where  it  passes  into  the 
purest  and  most  transparent,  most  liquid, 
carmine.  Occasionally  this  rosy  fluid  over 
flows  into  the  rest  of  her  face — by  which  I 
mean  that  she  blushes — as  softly  as  the  mark 
of  your  breath  on  the  window-pane. 

Like  every  Anglaise,  she  is  rather  pinched 
and  prim  in  public ;  but  it  is  very  easy  to 
see  that  when  no  one  is  looking  elle  ne  de- 
mande  qu'&  se  laisser  oiler!  Whenever  she 
wants  it,  I  am  always  there,  and  I  have 
given  her  to  understand  that  she  can  count 
upon  me.  I  have  every  reason  to  believe 
that  she  appreciates  the  assurance,  though  I 
am  bound  in  honesty  to  confess  that  with  her 
the  situation  is  a  little  less  advanced  than 
with  the  others.  Que  voulcz-vous  ?  The  Eng 
lish  are  heavy,  and  tkeAnglaises  move  slowly, 
that's  all.  The  movement,  however,  is  per 
ceptible  ;  and  once  this  fact  is  established,  I 


A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS.  123 

can  let  the  pottage  simmer.  I  can  give  her 
time  to  arrive,  for  I  am  over  well  occupied 
•with  her  concurrentes.  Celles-ci  don't  keep  me 
waiting,  par  exemple! 

These  yonDg  ladies  are  Americans,  and 
you  know  that  it, is  the  national  character 
to  move  fast.  " All  right — go  ahead!"  (I 
am  learning  a  great  deal  of  English,  or,  rath 
er,  a  great  deal  of  American.)  They  go  ahead 
at  a  rate  that  sometimes  makes  it  difficult 
for  me  to  keep  up. 

One  of  them  is  prettier  than  the  other; 
but  this  latter  (the  one  that  takes  the  pri 
vate  lessons)  is  really  une  fdle  prodiyieuse. 
Ah,  par  exemple,  elle  Irule  ses  vaisseux,  celle- 
la!  She  threw  herself  into  my  arms  the 
very  first  day,  and  I  almost  owed  her  a  grudge 
for  having  deprived  me  of  that  pleasure  of 
gradation,  of  carrying  the  defences  one  by 
one,  which  is  almost  as  great  as  that  of  en 
tering  the  place. 

Would  you  believe  that  at  the  end  of  ex 
actly  twelve  minutes  she  gave  me  a  rendez 
vous  ?  It  is  true  it  was  in  the  Galerie  d'Apol- 
lou,  at  the  Louvre ;  but  that  was  respectable 
for  a  beginning,  and  since  then  we  have  had 
them  by  the  dozen — I  have  ceased  to  keep 
the  account.  Non,  c'est  une  fille  qiii  me  de- 
passe. 


124  A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS. 

The  little  one  (she  has  a  mother  some 
where,  out  of  sight,  shut  up  in  a  closet  or  a 
trunk)  is  a  good  deal  prettier,  and,  perhaps, 
on  that  account  elle  y  met  plus  def aeons.  She 
doesn't  knock  about  Paris  with  me  by  the 
hour ;  she  contents  herself  with  long  inter 
views  in  the  petit  salon,  with  the  curtains 
half-drawn,  beginning  at  about  three  o'clock, 
when  every  one  is  a  la  promenade.  She  is 
admirable,  this  little  one;  a  little  too  thin, 
the  bones  rather  accentuated,  but  the  detail, 
on  the  whole,  most  satisfactory.  Non,  elle 
est  Uen  gcntille.  And  you  can  say  anything 
to  her.  She  takes  the  trouble  to  appear  not 
to  understand ;  but  her  conduct,  half  an  hour 
afterwards,  reassures  you  completely — oh; 
completely ! 

However,  it  is  the  tall  one,  the  one  of  the 
private  lessons,  that  is  the  most  remarka 
ble.  These  private  lessons,  my  good  Pros 
per,  are  the  most  brilliant  invention  of 
the  age,  and  a  real  stroke  of  genius  on 
the  part  of  Miss  Miranda !  They  also  take 
place  in  the  petit  salon,  but  with  the  doors 
tightly  closed,  and  with  explicit  directions 
to  every  one  in  the  house  that  we  are  not 
to  be  disturbed.  And  we  are  not,  my  dear 
Prosper ;  we  are  not !  Not  a  sound,  not  a 
shadow,  interrupts  our  felicity.  My  cousine 


A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS.  125 

is  really  admirable ;  the  shop  deserves  to 
succeed. 

Miss  Miranda  is  tall  and  rather  flat ;  she  is 
too  pale ;  she  hasn't  the  adorable  rougeurs  of 
the  little  Anglaise.  But  she  has  bright,  keen, 
inquisitive  eyes,  superb  teeth,  a  nose  mod 
elled  by  a  sculptor,  and  a  way  of  holding  up 
her  head  and  looking  every  one  in  the  face 
which  is  the  most  finished  piece  of  imperti 
nence  I  ever  beheld.  She  is  making  the  tour 
du  monde,  entirely  alone,  without  even  a  sou- 
brette  to  carry  the  ensign,  for  the  purpose 
of  seeing  for  herself  a  qiioi  s'en  tenir  sur  les 
homines  et  les  chases — on  les  liommes  particu 
larly.  Dls  done,  Prosper,  it  must  be  a  drole 
de  pays  over  there,  where  young  persons  ani 
mated  by  this  ardent  curiosity  are  manu 
factured  !  If  we  should  turn  the  tables  some 
day,  thou  and  I,  and  go  over  and  see  it  for 
ourselves !  Ib  is  as  well  that  we  should  go 
and  find  them  chez  elleSj  as  that  they  should 
come  out  here  after  us.  Dis  done,  mon  gros 
Prosper.  .  .  . 


125  A  BUNDLE   OF   LETTERS. 


VIII. 

FROM  DR.  RUDOLF  STAUB,  ix  PARIS,  TO  DR. 

JULIUS  HlRSCI-I,  AT  G6TTIXGEX. 

MY  DEAR  BROTHER  ix  SCIENCE,-— 

I  resume  my  liasty  notes,  of  which  I  sent 
you  the  first  instalment  some  weeks  ago.  I 
mentioned  then  that  I  intended  to  leave  my 
hotel,  not  finding  it  sufficiently  local  and  na 
tional.  It  was  kept  by  a  Pomeranian,  and 
the  waiters,  without  exception,  were  from 
the  Fatherland.  I  fancied  myself  at  Berlin, 
in  Uuter  den  Linden  ;  and  I  reflected  that, 
having  taken  the  serious  step  of  visiting  the 
headquarters  of  the  Gallic  genius,  I  should 
try  and  project  myself  as  much  as  possible 
into  the  circumstances  which  are  in  part  the 
consequence  and  in  part  the  cause  of  its  ir 
repressible  activity.  It  seemed  to  me  that 
there  could  be  no  well-grounded  knowledge 
without  this  preliminary  operation  of  plac 
ing  myself  in  relations,  as  slightly  as  pos 
sible  modified  by  elements  proceeding  from 
a  different  combination  of  causes,  with  tlio 
spontaneous  home-life  of  the  country. 


*  A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS.  127 

I  accordingly  engaged  a  room  in  the  house 
of  a  lady  of  pure  French  extraction  and  ed 
ucation,  who  supplements  the  shortcomings 
of  an  income  insufficient  to  the  ever-growing 
demands  of  the  Parisian  system  of  sense- 
gratification  by  providing  food  and  lodging 
for  a  limited  number  of  distinguished  stran 
gers.  I  should  have  preferred  to  have  my 
room  alone  in  the  house,  and  to  take  my 
meals  in  a  brewery  of  very  good  appearance 
which  I  speedily  discovered  in  the  same 
street ;  but  this  arrangement,  though  very 
lucidly  proposed  by  myself,  was  not  accepta 
ble  to  the  mistress  of  the  establishment  (a 
woman  with  a  mathematical  head),  and  I 
have  consoled  myself  for  the  extra  expense 
by  fixing  my  thoughts  upon  the  opportunity 
that  conformity  to  the  customs  of  the  house 
gives  me  of  studying  the  table  manners  of 
my  companions,  and  of  observing  the  French 
nature  at  a  peculiarly  physiological  moment, 
when  the  satisfaction  of  the  taste,  which  is 
the  governing  quality  in  its  composition, 
produces  a  kind  of  exhalation,  an  intellectual 
transpiration,  which,  though  light,  and  per 
haps  invisible  to  a  superficial  spectator,  is 
nevertheless  appreciable  by  a  properly  ad 
justed  instrument. 

I  have  adjusted  my  instrument  very  sat- 


128  A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS.  v 

isfactorily  (I  mean  the  one  I  carry  in  my 
good,  square  German  head),  and  I  am  not 
afraid  of  losing  a  single  drop  of  this  valua 
ble  fluid,  as  it  condenses  itself  upon  the  plate 
of  my  observation.  A  prepared  surface  is 
•what  I  need,  and  I  have  prepared  my  surface. 

Unfortunately,  here  also  I  find  the  indi 
vidual  native  in  the  minority.  There  are 
only  four  French  persons  in  the  house — the 
individuals  concerned  in  its  management, 
three  of  whom  are  women,  and  one  a  man. 
This  preponderance  of  the  feminine  element 
is,  however,  in  itself  characteristic,  as  I  need 
not  remind  you  what  an  abnormally  devel 
oped  part  this  sex  has  played  in  French  his 
tory.  The  remaining  figure  is  apparently 
that  of  a  man,  but  I  hesitate  to  classify  him 
so  superficially.  He  appears  to  me  less  hu 
man  than  simian,  and  whenever  I  hear  him 
talk  I  seem  to  myself  to  have  paused  in  the 
street  to  listen  to  the  shrill  clatter  of  a  hand- 
organ,  to  which  the  gambols  of  a  hairy  ho- 
munculus  form  an  accompaniment. 

I  mentioned  to  you  before  that  my  expec 
tation  of  rough  usage,  in  consequence  of  my 
German  nationality,  had  proved  completely 
unfounded.  No  one  seems  to  know  or  to 
care  what  my  nationality  is,  and  I  am  treat 
ed,  on  the  contrary,  with  the  civility  which 


A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTEES.  129 

is  the  portion  of  every  traveller  who  pays 
the  bill  without  scanning  the  items  too  nar 
rowly.  This,  I  confess,  has  been  something 
of  a  surprise  to  me,  and  I  have  not  yet  made 
up  my  mind  as  to  the  fundamental  cause  of 
the  anomaly. 

My  determination  to  take  up  my  abode  in 
a  French  interior  was  largely  dictated  by 
the  supposition  that  I  should  be  substantial 
ly  disagreeable  to  its  inmates.  I  wished  to 
observe  the  different  forms  taken  by  the  ir 
ritation  that  I  should  naturally  produce ;  for 
it  is  under  the  influence  of  irritation  that  the 
French  character  most  completely  expresses 
itself.  My  presence,  however,  does  not  ap 
pear  to  operate  as  a  stimulus,  and  in  this  re 
spect  I  am  materially  disappointed.  They 
treat  me  as  they  treat  every  one  else ;  where 
as,  in  order  to  be  treated  differently,  I  was 
resigned  in  advance  to  being  treated  worse. 

I  have  not,  as  I  say,  fully  explained  to  my 
self  this  logical  contradiction ;  but  this  is 
the  explanation  to.which  I  tend.  The  French 
are  so  exclusively  occupied  with  the  idea  of 
themselves  that,  in  spite  of  the  very  definite 
image  the  German  personality  presented  to 
them  by  the  war  of  1870,  they  have  at  pres 
ent  no  distiuct  apprehension  of  its  existence. 
They  are  not  very  sure  that  there  are  any 
9 


130  A  BUNDLE   OF  LETTERS. 

Germans;  they  have  already  forgotten  the 
convincing  proofs  of  the  fact  that  were  pre 
sented  to  them  nine  years  ago.  A  German 
was  something  disagreeable,  which  they  de 
termined  to  keep  out  of  their  conception  of 
things.  I  therefore  think  that  we  are  wrong 
to  govern  ourselves  upon  the  hypothesis  of 
the  revanche  ;  the  French  nature  is  too  shal 
low  for  that  large  and  powerful  plant  to 
bloom  in  it. 

The  English-speaking  specimens,  too,  I 
have  not  been  willing  to  neglect  the  oppor 
tunity  to  examine ;  and  among  these  I  have 
paid  special  attention  to  the  American  vari 
eties,  of  which  I  find  here  several  singular 
examples.  One  of  the  most  remarkable  is  a 
young  man  who  presents  all  the  characteris 
tics  of  a  period  of  national  decadence,  re 
minding  me  strongly  of  some  diminutive 
Hellenized  Roman  of  the  third  century.  He 
is  an  illustration  of  the  period  of  culture  in 
which  the  faculty  of  appreciation  has  ob 
tained  such  a  preponderance  over  that  of 
production  that  the  latter  sinks  into  a  kind 
of  rank  sterility,  and  the  mental  condition 
becomes  analogous  to  that  of  a  malarious 
bog. 

I  learn  from  him  that  there  is  an  immense 
number  of  Americans  exactly  resembling 


A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS.  131 

him,  and  that  the  city  of  Boston,  indeed,  is 
almost  exclusively  composed  of  them.  (He 
communicated  this  fact  very  proudly,  as  if  it 
were  greatly  to  the  credit  of  his  native  coun 
try  ;  little  perceiving  the  truly  sinister  im 
pression  it  made  upon  me.) 

What  strikes  one  in  it  is  that  it  is  a  phe 
nomenon,  to  the  best  of  my  knowledge — and 
you  know  what  my  knowledge  is — unprece 
dented  and  unique  in  the  history  of  man 
kind  ;  the  arrival  of  a  nation  at  an  ultimate 
stage  of  evolution  without  having  passed 
through  the  mediate  one ;  the  passage  of  the 
fruit,  in  other  words,  from  crudity  to  rotten 
ness  without  the  interposition  of  a  period 
of  useful  (and  ornamental)  ripeness.  With 
the  Americans,  indeed,  the  crudity  and  the 
rottenness  are  identical  and  simultaneous; 
it  is  impossible  to  say,  as  in  the  conversa 
tion  of  this  deplorable  young  man,  which  is 
one  and  which  is  the  other ;  they  are  inex 
tricably  mingled.  I  prefer  the  talk  of  the 
French  homunculus  ;  it  is  at  least  more  amus 
ing. 

It  is  interesting  in  this  manner  to  per 
ceive,  so  largely  developed,  the  germs  of 
extinction  in  the  so-called  powerful  Anglo- 
Saxon  family.  I  find  them  in  almost  as  rec 
ognizable  a  form  in  a  young  woman  from 


132  A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS. 

the  State  of  Maine,  in  the  province  of  New 
England,  with  whom  I  have  had  a  good  deal 
of  conversation.  She  differs  somewhat  from 
the  young  man  I  just  mentioned,  in  that  the 
faculty  of  production,  of  action,  is  in  her  less 
inanimate;  she  haa  more  of  the  freshness 
and  vigor  that  we  suppose  to  belong  to  a 
young  civilization.  But,  unfortunately,  she 
produces  nothing  but  evil,  and  her  tastes 
and  habits  are  similarly  those  of  a  Roman 
lady  of  the  lower  Empire.  She  makes  no 
secret  of  them,  and  has,  in  fact,  elaborated 
a  complete  system  of  licentious  behavior. 
As  the  opportunities  she  finds  in  her  own. 
country  do  not  satisfy  her,  she  has  come  to 
Europe  "  to  try,"  as  she  says,  "  for  herself." 

It  is  the  doctrine  of  universal  experience 
professed  with  a  cynicism  that  is  really  most 
extraordinary,  and  which,  presenting  itself 
in  a  young  woman  of  considerable  educa 
tion,  appears  to  me  to  be  the  judgment  of  a 
society. 

Another  observation  which  pushes  me  to 
the  same  induction — that  of  the  premature 
vitiation  of  the  American  population — is  the 
attitude  of  the  Americans  whom  I  have  be 
fore  me  with  regard  to  each  other.  There 
is  another  young  lady  here  who  is  less  ab 
normally  developed  than  the  one  I  have  just 


A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTEKS.  133 

described,  but  who  yet  bears  the  stamp  of 
this  peculiar  combination  of  incompleteness 
and  effeteiiess. 

These  three  persons  look  with  the  great 
est  mistrust  and  aversion  upon  each  other ; 
and  each  has  repeatedly  taken  me  apart  and 
assured  me,  secretly,  that  he  or  she  only  is 
the  real,  the  genuine,  the  typical  American. 
A  type  that  has  lost  itself  before  it  has  been 
fixed — what  can  you  look  for  from  this  ? 

Add  to  this  that  there  are  two  young 
Englanders  in  the  house,  who  hate  all  the 
Americans  in  a  lump,  making  between  them 
none  of  the  distinctions  and  favorable  com 
parisons  which  they  insist  upon,  and  you 
will,  I  think,  hold  me  warranted  in  believing 
that,  between  precipitate  decay  and  inter 
necine  enmities,  the  English-speaking  family 
is  destined  to  consume  itself,  and  that  with 
its  decline  the  prospect  of  general  pervasive 
ness,  to  which  I  alluded  above,  will  brighten 
for  the  deep-lunged  children  of  the  Father- 
laud! 


134  A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS. 


IX. 

MIRANDA  HOPE  TO  HER  MOTHER. 

October  22. 
DEAR  MOTHER, — 

I  am  off  in  a  day  or  two  to  visit  some  new 
country ;  I  haven't  yet  decided  which.  I 
have  satisfied  myself  with  regard  to  France, 
and  obtained  a  good  knowledge  of  the  lan 
guage.  I  have  enjoyed  my  visit  to  Madame 
de  Maisonrouge  deepljr,  and  feel  as  if  I  were 
leaving  a  circle  of  real  friends.  Everything 
has  gone  on  beautifully  up  to  the  end,  and 
every  one  has  been  as  kind  and  attentive  as 
if  I  were  their  own  sister,  especially  Mr.  Ver- 
clier,  the  French  gentleman,  from  whom  I 
have  gained  more  than  I  ever  expected  (in 
six  weeks),  and  with  whom  I  have  promised 
to  correspond.  So  you  can  imagine  me  dash- 
iug  off  the  most  correct  French  letters ;  and 
if  you  don't  believe  it,  I  will  keep  the  rough 
draft  to  show  you  when  I  go  back. 

The  German  gentleman  is  also  more  inter 
esting  the  more  you  know  him ;  it  seems 
sometimes  as  if  I  could  fairly  drink  in  his 


A  BUNDLE  OF  LETTERS.  135 

ideas.  I  have  found  out  why  the  young 
lady  from  New  York  doesn't  like  me  !  It  is 
because  I  said  one  day  at  dinner  that  I  ad 
mired  to  go  to  the  Louvre.  Well,  when  I 
first  came,  it  seemed  as  if  I  did  admire  ev 
erything  ! 

Tell  William  Platt  his  letter  has  come.  I 
knew  he  would  have  to  write,  and  I  was 
bound  I  would  make  him!  I  haven't  de 
cided  what  country  I  will  visit  yet ;  it  seems 
as  if  there  were  so  many  to  choose  from. 
But  I  shall  take  care  to  pick  out  a  good  one, 
and  to  meet  plenty  of  fresh  experiences. 

Dearest  mother,  my  money  holds  out,  and 
it  is  most  interesting ! 


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